; A 




0!assB\/'-l 

Book ^Lj±i 



10 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



•■') 



A LITTLE CASKET OF PKECIOUS 
JEWELS. 




W. H . LEWIS. 



A LITTLE CASKET OF 
PRECIOUS JEWELS 



A DAIL Y COMPANION WHICH, WHEN RIOHTL Y USED, 

WILL BRING THE CHRISTIAN INTO A LIFE 

OF ABIDING FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD 



BY REV. W. H. LEWIS, D.D. 



"None for self; all for Christ and humanity" 



Nashville, Tenn. ; Dallas, Tex.' * ' » '•' '- 
Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South 
Bigham & Smith, Agents 
1903 



^ % J 



A v 
V*' 



6 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

AUG 26 1903 

Copyright Entry 

'CLASS CC XXc. No 

COPY B. 




Copyrighted, 1903, 

BY 

"W. H. Lewis. 



UeB^rifullg firfftnttrfi 



TO MY OLD PARISHIONERS AMD FRIENDS, 

WITH WHOM I HAVE WORSHIPED GOD HALF A 

CENTURY, AND MANY OF WHOM HAVE GONE BEFORE 

TO THE HEAVENLY CANAAN. MAY WE ALL 

MEET IN HEAVEN, NEVER TO PART 

AGAIN! 



PEEFACE. 

We gathered the contents of this " Little Casket of 
Precious Jewels " from the Bible and from the best 
religious writers, regardless of denominational distinc- 
tion. We have drawn from the works of Andrew 
Murray more extensively than from any other author. 
The names of authors have been given when known. 
Some things have been used without knowing their 
source. We lay no claims to originality, except the 
preface and the headlines at the top indicating the sub- 
ject of the piece. We aim at nothing novel or new, 
only so far as truth is always new. Our one object is 
the building of a perfect Christian character according 
to the Bible standard, as given to us of God. Is not 
this the very object for which Christ vacated his throne 
in heaven and made his advent to our world — the 
restoration of man to his original relationship to God, 
elevating him to the high altitude of heaven itself, the 
everlasting habitation of the living God, and the eternal 
home of all his faithful people? Yes, a higher altitude 
than man was when in his terrestrial paradise. 

That we be not discouraged at so high a standard of 
Christian perfection, let us first of all recognize this 
great and glorious truth: that Jesus, the God-man, has 
come, and proposes to do all the work of our salvation. 
What we have to do is to surrender all into his hands, 
and then be nothing and do nothing, as "clay in the 
hands of the potter," only we must continue and never 



viii Preface. 

cease surrendering ourselves to God. Like Paul, we 
must die daily. As Christ is to do all in the work of 
our personal salvation, it should make no difference 
with us how high the standard is; for our Christ is God, 
"to whom nothing is too hard," and with whom "all 
things are possible." When God proposes to create us 
anew in Christ Jesus, and in righteousness and true ho- 
liness, in view of giving us a happy home with himself 
in the Eternal City, should we not exclaim with eager 
joy: "Yes, Lord, we will be thine now and forever?" 

The prominence of faith as the central factor in the 
great work of our salvation will justify our speaking of 
it in the preface. Will it not make the subject clearer 
by comparing our natural life with our spiritual life? 
Natural life holds intercourse with the material world 
through the senses of the body, while spiritual life holds 
intercourse with the things of the spiritual world through 
the medium of faith. Faith is just as much a power or 
faculty of man's spiritual being as reason is a power or 
faculty of his intellectual being. As we acquire knowl- 
edge of the material things of this world through our 
physical organism, so we acquire knowledge of the 
things of the spiritual world through the faith faculty. 
As we do not doubt the testimony of the senses in rela- 
tion to the things of this world, neither should we doubt 
the testimony of faith in relation to the things of the 
spiritual world. 

Faith is God's appointed condition of salvation. 
Christ said to the applicant: " Thy faith hath saved 



Preface. ix 

thee" — instrumentally, of course. No earthly power 
can withstand the power of faith, because it is the om- 
nipotent power of God. "All things are possible to 
him that believeth." Did not Christ, when he was 
teaching on earth, emphasize faith more than anything 
else, because man needed faith more than anything 
else? Deprive us of faith, and you at once separate us 
from God. You cut off all intercourse, communion, 
and fellowship with him. An unbeliever has no God, 
is without God in the world. A godless man is a mon- 
strosity in creation. How different with a believer, 
whose God is his loving Father, whose Elder Brother is 
Jesus, his Saviour, and whose Comforter is the dove- 
like, sweet Holy Spirit! In constant intercourse with 
his triune God he is supremely blessed and perfectly 
happy. 

We have been convinced through all our Christian 
life of seventy years that the salvation which comes to 
us from God, through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, 
is a full, perfect, and complete salvation, every way 
worthy of its divine Author. It utterly destroys every- 
thing contrary to the will of God, and in the consum- 
mation of its work makes man a pure and holy angel in 
the paradise of God. 

God offers us this glorious salvation in this life. 
" Now is the accepted time; . . . now is the day of 
salvation." Jesus has set up the kingdom of heaven on 
earth for this very purpose, and we go from the kingdom 
of heaven on earth into the kingdom of heaven in the ce- 



x Preface. 

lestial world. But, mark you, it is the same kingdom of 
heaven, whether on earth or in the realm of immortali- 
ty and eternal life. We enter the kingdom of heaven, 
or the Church, as it is now called, as a training school 
to prepare and qualify us for citizenship in the Church 
triumphant in heaven. But the great trouble is, there 
are so many persons in the Church who have no knowl- 
edge of practical and experimental Christianity, no 
knowledge of spiritual religion. There is another class 
of members who may have some religion, but they are 
satisfied with a meager and deficient religious experi- 
ence. They are all the time progressing and retrogra- 
ding, sinning and repenting, repenting and sinning, and 
of course they make little or no progress in the Chris- 
tian life. 

The only way to remedy this lamentable state of 
things is for such persons to make a full, entire, and 
complete surrender of themselves to Christ; to give 
themselves wholly to God, now and forever. Let them 
take the Little Casket of Precious Jewels as their 
guidebook in connection with the Bible, and theirs will 
be a triumphant march from conquest to victory in the 
King's highway of holiness till they reach the jasper 
walls and pearly gates of the golden city of the living 
God. 

We send the Little Casket of Precious Jewels 
forth on its mission of good, praying that God may 
bless it, and hoping it may prove to be a blessing to all 
who read it. W. H. Lewis. 

Glasgow, Mo. 



CONTENTS. 

Introduction xiii 

I. 
Sayings of the Wise and Good 1 

II 
Scripture Citations 29 

III. 
Religious Exercises in Waiting on God 47 

IV. 
Experimental and Practical Christianity 59 



INTRODUCTION. 

My good friend Dr. Lewis, who deserves as well as any 
man living the title of everybody's friend, brings forth 
fruit in old age. And ripe and luscious fruit it is. He 
has collected the best thoughts of many mature Chris- 
tians, with whom the Christian life has become the most 
consummate of all arts, fashioned and perfected by the 
Holy Ghost, the supreme Source and Artificer of char- 
acter and conduct. His own rich experience has guid- 
ed him to the selection with unfailing sagacity of those 
passages from the writings of many authors which most 
certainly convey direction to the perplexed and comfort 
to the despairing or sorrowful. He has known, too, 
how to cull the satisfying portions of Holy Writ, and to 
lead every reader of his little book into pastures green 
and by the still waters of spiritual repose. Like Mr. 
Wesley, in many of his treatises, Dr. Lewis has sacri- 
ficed the conceit of originality that he might serve his 
kind by giving wider currency to pure and lofty senti- 
ments contained, oftentimes, in books to which only the 
few have access. I am glad to have the privilege of 
writing this introductory word, of placing a little in- 
scription on the outside of this casket of precious jewels 
to assure him who holds it in his hand of the value of 
the contents. The author has not claimed too much in 
intimating on his title-page that he who attentively con- 



xiv Introduction. 

siders what is here brought to his notice will be brought 
into a life of abiding fellowship with God. May the 
prayers with which I am sure the venerable author ac- 
companies this treatise be abundantly answered in the 
salvation and nourishment of souls; and, when Dr. 
Lewis shall have passed to his eternal reward, by these 
pages may he still speak the word of exhortation and 
comfort. Jxo. J. Tigert. 

Nashville, 14 May, 1903. 



I. 

SAYINGS OF THE WISE AND 
GOOD. 



SAYINGS OF THE WISE AND GOOD. 



No truth that is self-evident, and no truth whose 
demonstration lies in personal experience, and there- 
fore above reason, can ever be submitted to argu- 
ment without danger. Reason dethroned truth in 
France, but truth resumed its seat, in spite of rea- 
son, by simple self-assertion. 

To live in the power of this divine life is the true 
secret of all success. It is not so much by earnest 
struggling that we glorify God as by a continual 
yielding up of ourselves to him who in every sense 
is our life. 

You have been scarcely conscious of the fact that 
none other than He with whom all things are possi- 
ble has been in you, to put forth not your power in 
him, but his power in you. " Strengthened with all 
might, according to his glorious power." 

After all, it is life itself, sanctified life, that is 
God's holiest and most effective ministry in this 
world, as what we are, that tells in impressions and 
spiritual results — pure, sweet, patient, earnest, un- 
selfish, loving life. It is not so much what we do in 
this world as what we are. A good life is like a flower 
which, though it neither toils nor spins, yet ever pours 
out a rich perfume, and thus performs a glorious min- 
istry. 



4 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Every child of God owes it to the privilege and 
honor of his faith to show that in all the perils and 
trials of life he can be fearless and firm, in all the 
sorrows and afflictions of life he can rejoice and be 
glad. Christian faith never teaches a more impor- 
tant lesson than it does by manifesting firmness and 
serenity of mind amid all the temptations of the world, 
the flesh, and the devil. 

In the right use of his endowments man must be 
always lifting himself up to a better and a higher 
life. He must make all his studies, pleasures, and 
toils steps on which to climb the ascending way to 
glory and to God. The things of this world are too 
mean, the range of earthly interests is too low, too 
limited, for the aspirations which God created in us 
when he breathed into our souls the breath of life. 

Remember, as in God so in man, will is character. 
What a man wills tells what he is. He may look this 
way or that at times, but the way he goes determines 
what he is. 

Let a man break forth from the contracted circle 
of a worldly life, let him cultivate hopes and aspira- 
tions worthy of his immortal destiny, let him learn 
to look to God as his Father and himself as the heir 
of the whole boundless universe, and he shall grow in 
greatness and in joy beyond the reach of his loftiest 
thought. He shall be made a king unto God, and 
shall reign forever. 

The law of life and progress consists in ' ' forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching forth 
unto those things which are before." In this growth 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 5 

there is to be perpetual flourishing: evergreen leaves, 
unfading blossoms, fullness of sap, fruit in old age. 
There is to be the child's heart in the old man's bosom, 
and the beauty of the Lord their God upon all his 
faithful people. 

If self-denial be the great part of godliness, the 
great letter in the alphabet of religion, self-love is 
the great letter in practical atheism. Self is the great 
anti-Christ and anti-God in the world that sets up it- 
self above all that is called God, sits in the temple of 
God, and would be adored as God. 

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness. Efforts 
to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous, 
graceful from very gladness — a spirit all sunshine, 
beautiful because bright. 

'Tis He appoints our daily lot, and He does all 
things well. 

We reproach our past experience if we distrust 
God for the future. He hath delivered, he doth de- 
liver, and he will deliver. 

Live every day as though you expected to die at 
night, and do all you do as though you expected to 
live forever. 

Entire Sanctification. 

1. The knowledge of Christ as a present Saviour 
from the pollution and power of sin. 

2. A present freedom in worship and Christian 
work which is truly delightful. 

3. Fullness of the love of God, and of peace and 
joy in his service. 



6 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

4. Permanence in these things through an abiding 
union with Christ by faith. 

5. Continuous progression in grace by a life of 
consecration to the service of God. 

6. Increasing in fruitfulness. 

7. Greater pleasure in prayer and reading the 
Scriptures. 

8. The power of watchfulness more active. 

9. A freedom from anxiety, care, and fear. The 
God who rules the universe says he will preserve us 
from all evil. Why should we fear? 

Watch your infirmities. Keep a strict guard at 
that door, else all sorts and sizes of sins will come in 
to annoy you. 

Love thyself last; praise thyself least; fret thyself 
never; try more to interest thyself in others than oth- 
ers in thee. 

The chamber where the good man meets his fate is 
privileged beyond the common walks of virtuous life; 
quite in the verge of heaven. 

Anxiety is the bane of human happiness. Discour- 
agement is not a fruit of humility, but of pride. 

Somebody must prove victorious in the strife and 
stand unscathed amid temptation. Somebody must 
live a heavenly life on earth and show a superiority 
over worldly care and selfish tendencies. Somebody 
must rise above the offers of this world's honors and 
riches, and prefer the crown of life, so that self-seek- 
ing men may see the folly of their time-serving pol- 
icy. Somebody must rise to the sublime faith and 
courage, when human arithmetic shall be laid aside, 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 7 

and human probabilities not be considered, and God's 
promise shall be more certain than all human calcula- 
tions. 

The thread of life is woven on the loom of divine 
providence. 

To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be under di- 
vine control, absolutely possessed of God, the whole 
manhood governed by the presence of the Triune 
God — all organized in the love of Christ and ener- 
gized by the Holy Spirit. 

The important point is inner purity — purity of 
thought, of imagination, of motive, of affection. 
When this is a fact, the growth will be natural, easy, 
and beautiful, and the soul will be victorious in every 
conflict. 

Gird thyself up like a man to resist the wicked 
temptations of the devil. 

Under the providence of grace, ruins become res- 
torations, the fallen are lifted up, the wounded are 
healed, and the graves of virtue and hope become the 
gardens where they freshly grow. 

It is not enough to have a general cheerfulness. 
There must be superiority to particular disquietudes, 
and a keeping of the heart in the stillness of grace, 
in the great and deep peace of God, in the very pres- 
ence of any immediate agitation. 

The good man is the great man. Goodness is great- 
ness. He is the happy man who sees the face of God. 
He is the wise man who satisfies himself with the 
divine likeness. 



8 A Little Casket of Precious Jeivels. 

For all times, for all troubles, for all needs, there 
is a present, merciful God, with all his grace also 
present to heal, to help, and to love to the end. 

If we desire to be cheerful, we must cultivate it. 
If we desire to be useful, we must be cheerful and 
hopeful and resolute. We must see no defeat, enter- 
tain no fears, meet trials with a smile, and be deter- 
mined that our flag shall wave over the citadel of joy; 
then we shall move like conquerors. 

The way to have strong faith is to think nothing 
of ourselves. 

True humility consists in not thinking of ourselves 
at all. 

Trust and be strong; trust and be cheerful; trust 
and be in earnest; trust and wait. 

The greatest, wisest, purest, happiest man is he 
who walks most closely with God in the daily paths 
of life. 

To achieve the greatest results, the man must die 
to himself, and cease to exist in his own thoughts. 

He who looks upon Christ through frames and 
feelings is like one who sees the sun on water, which 
quivers and moves as the water moves; but he who 
looks upon Christ in the glass of his word sees him 
ever the same. 

Faith is the grave of care. 

Just in proportion to our prayers is our holiness 
and usefulness: "Strong in the Lord, and in the pow- 
er of his might." 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 9 

The true happiness of every Christian consists in 
his spiritual communion with God. u He is about 
my path and about my bed." 

Bear up and bear on; the end shall tell that the 
Lord doeth all things well. 

It is the very nature of prayer in faith to cast all 
manner of care and every burden on the Lord. It 
charges Christ with all, and leaves everything with 
him. 

Life should be a continual vision of God's pres- 
ence. 

Heaven must be in us before we can be in heaven. 

The disposition we cultivate is the true philosophy 
of life. 

We view death as coming to destroy; let us rather 
view Christ as coming to save. We think of death 
as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning. 
We think of losing; let us rather think of gaining. 
We think of parting; let us rather think of meeting. 

The true greatness of living must come from liv- 
ing with the great destiny of an immortal life ever 
in view. 

What little difference it makes to any man where 
he is or what he is in his worldly relations, if only 
his heart is filled with all the fullness of God ! 

The higher the flight of our faith the more serene 
and joyous will be our journey to the heavenly Ca- 
naan. 



10 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

If we want to be happy, we must be occupied with 
God and his surroundings; if we want to be miser- 
able, we have only to be occupied with self and its 
surroundings. 

Thou wilt make great progress in righteousness 
if thou wilt keep thyself free from every temporal 
anxiety. 

God only, the eternal and infinite who filleth all 
things, is the solace of the soul and the true joy of 
the heart. 

I know of nothing that cripples a man more in his 
usefulness than anxious care. 

Trusting more and more and moment by moment 
in the merits of Christ's death, and in God's keeping 
power, and in the Holy Ghost as the vitalizing force of 
the Christian's life and growth, will give him success 
and victory all the time. 

With a forgiven past, a contented and happy pres- 
ent, and a hopeful future, the Christian can and 
ought to be happy. 

There is a magnetic, quickening, inspiring, and 
comforting power in that soul who is living in con- 
stant communion with God. 

With a man who lives right nothing goes wrong. 

The rest of faith is the mind at leisure with itself ; 
it is the perfect poise of the soul, the absolute ad- 
justment of the soul to the stress of outward things, 
the stability of assured convictions, the eternal calm 
of all- victorious faith, the repose of a heart set deep 
in God. 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 11 

There is no fellowship with the Father but through 
the Son, and no fellowship with the Son but through 
the Holy Spirit in us. Thus the three divine Per- 
sons in the Trinity are united as one in the great 
work of man's salvation. 

A person who thoroughly respects himself, and 
acts accordingly, will be respected by others. 

A simple, earnest, loving speech from an overflow- 
ing heart is the most powerful instrumentality that 
man ever uses upon his fellow-men. 

Honor all men, and look for the good that is in 
men, and be blind to the bad. 

Let off of your heart the dreadful sense of respon- 
sibility; for the battle is the Lord's, and not yours. 

Your worry is measured by your unbelief. God 
gives strength for all burdens, the heavier as well as 
the lighter ones. 

To read, to pray, to think, to love, to hope — these 
are the things that make us happy. 

The essence of God is one, but threefold is the 
manifestation of that essence, the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Spirit. 

Whatsoever our circumstances may be, to place 
ourselves on every occasion before the Lord with our 
open heart, without reserve or guile, is the grand se- 
cret of happiness and peace. 

Infidelity condemns nothing that is bad. It ridi- 
cules and denounces all that is good; it tears down, 
but never builds up. It tries to destroy religion, but 
offers no adequate substitute. 



12 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

We should keep the heart pure by keeping it in 
fellowship with Christ; keep the tongue pure by 
using it for Christ; keep the life pure by living in 
all things for Christ. In thought, in feeling, in word 
and action be pure like Christ. 

So live, so act, that every hour may die as dies the 
natural flower, that every word, every deed may bear 
within itself the seed of future good in future need. 

He is the best Christian who wins the most splen- 
did victories by the retrieval of mistakes. 

To every man his own mind is a kingdom, and he 
should suffer no rival on its throne. If he masters 
his own spirit, if he rules well in the living and im- 
mortal realm of his own soul, he is a prince in his 
own God-given right. 

If we would only let God have his way with us in 
all things, what beautiful lives ours would be! how 
bright for ourselves, how healthful and life-giving to 
others! How full of this world's pleasant things! 
how free from this world's hurtful things! how full 
of joy and peace and health! how free from tortur- 
ing anxiety, disease, and sin! 

If God cares for us, why do we need to care too? 
Can we trust him for our soul and not our body? 
He has never refused to bear our burdens. Why 
then should we carry them? "Cast all thy care on 
the Lord, for he careth for us." 

To return evil for evil is beastlike; to return evil 
for good is fiendlike; to return good for good is 
manlike; but to return good for evil is Godlike. 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 13 

The secret of rest is the habit of taking everything 
to God. 

1. 

If wisdom's ways you wisely seek, 
Five things observe with care — 

Of whom you speak, to whom you speak, 
And how and when and where. 

2. 
If your ears you'd keep from jeers, 

Three things keep meekly hid — 
Myself and I, and mine and my, 

And what I do and did. 

Self -distrust is the cause of most of our failures. 
In the assurance of strength there is strength, and 
they are the weakest, however strong, who have no 
faith in themselves. 

As we come near in God's time to the end of life, 
his providences, and our lives also, will blossom out 
in fragant flowers of peace and righteousness and 
faith. 

O God, renew my will from day to day; blend it 
with thine, and take away all that makes it hard to 
say, "Thy will be done." 

A suspicious temper is thoroughly Satanic in char- 
acter. No wise man will tolerate its presence in his 
heart, for it is death to every noble and generous 
impulse. 

Conscience must find an atonement for sin. Man 
must be able to look upon his past with a sense of 
peace. Memory must be soothecl. The past must 



14 A Little Gasket of Precious Jewels. 

have its frowns converted into smiles. God's for- 
giveness must cast its sunlight on the dark shadow. 
God is the key to all mystery. He is the absolute 
philosophy, and where faith centers in him, all ques- 
tions are answered, all mystery is solved, and all un- 
certainty. Faith has no ifs, and no occasion to ask 
why. 

There are habits of righteousness which maintain 
solid peace and pure states of the soul that are in- 
stinct with joy. The tendency to fly off, to depart, 
to wander, is gone. With ease and naturalness the 
sou], as if drawn by an irresistible attraction, obeys 
God's commands and joys in his purpose. 

Don't worry about anything. Strong faith never 
lost a battle. 

You may have as much of God as you want, and 
as little as you will. The measure of your faith will 
determine at once the measure of your religion. 

Christ is God. Even as God works in all nature 
from within and is secret, so the soul trusts Christ as 
the everywhere present indwelling one, doing his 
saving work in the hidden depth of its being. In 
Christ the soul comes in living contact with the per- 
son and life of God. 

Man has received from God a life? a nature, a spirit 
capable of partaking of his own life and nature and 
spirit, his will and his holiness; capable of likeness 
to and fellowship with God, even to the sitting on 
the throne and sharing with him the dominion of all 
creation. 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 15 

God created man to find his blessedness in him. 
This is the nobility and greatness of man, that he has 
a heart capable of fellowship with God, a heart so 
great that nothing less than God can satisfy him. 
This is held out to him as his highest blessedness 
throughout all eternity. 

Jesus triumphed over suffering and death by the 
faith that lives in the future and unseen world. It 
was in that faith he lived and endured and conquered, 
and in that faith we must follow his example. 

God's words are deeds. It is in what Christ is and 
does that God speaks to us. 

Man's words appeal to the mind, the will, the feel- 
ings, and the passions. God speaks to that which is 
deeper than all — to the heart, that central depth with- 
in us, whence are the issues of life. 

The words of the Bible are to prepare us for and 
point us to that inner speaking in the heart by the 
Holy Spirit which alone is life and power. This is 
God's true speaking in his Son. 

Life is not done, and our Christian character is not 
won, so long as God has anything left for us to do or 
to suffer. 

The Son of God, in his glory, counts his priesthood 
his highest glory as the power of making us partake 
as brethren with him in the life and love of the Fa- 
ther. 

In the deep joy of a life of daily obedience and 
childlike simplicity thou shalt know what it is to be 
filled with the Holy Spirit. 



16 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels, 

Let us believe in the mighty, quickening power of 
God's word. 

Faith in exercise is the breaking out of the divine 
life within, the very substance of things hoped for, 
the proof of the presence of things notrgeen. There 
is no power on earth that can stand before the power 
of faith, because the power of faith is the omnipotent 
power of God. 

A soul cannot be regarded as truly subdued and 
consecrated in its will, and as having passed into union 
with the divine Will, until it has a disposition to do 
promptly all that God requires, as well as to endure 
patiently all that he imposes. 

He who fears to suffer suffers from fear. 

Heaven and its blessing in our heart can fill us with 
a joy that counts every sacrifice a privilege, that 
makes every loss a gain, and turns all suffering into 
an everlasting weight of glory. 

Let our faith so live in the future and unseen world 
that all our life may be in the power of eternity and 
of Him in whom eternity has its glory. 

Spiritual and eternal realities were by faith so dear 
and near that they reckoned not the suffering of this 
present time worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in them. 

We need each day to learn more of Christ, to make 
new advances in obedience, to gain larger experience 
of the power of the heavenly life. There can be no 
healthy life without growth and progress. 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 1 7 

The Lord wants to teach us what in all Scripture is 
the chief thing: the assurance that prayer will be 
heard and answered. 

Let all suffering believers learn to know the Christ 
in whom they are holy — that he sanctified himself 
and sanctifies us through suffering. 

Answers to prayers are received by faith. 

A life in the will of God is rest and strength and 
blessing. 

Consecration Hymn. 
1. 
Thou sweet, beloved will of God, 

My anchor ground, my fortress hill, 
My spirit's silent, fair abode, 
In thee I hide me and am still. 

2. 
O will, that wiliest good alone, 

Lead thou the way; thou guidest best; 
A little child, I follow on, 

And, trusting, lean upon thy breast. 

3. 

Thy beautiful sweet will, my God, 
Holds fast in its sublime embrace 

My captive will, a gladsome bird, 
Prisoned in such a realm of grace. 

4. 
Within this place of certain good 

Love evermore expands her wings, 
Or, nestling in thy perfect choice, 

Abides content with what it brings. 



18 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

5. 
O sweetest burden, lightest yoke, 

It lifts, it bears my happy soul; 
It giveth wings to this glad heart. 

My freedom is thy grand control. 

6. 
Upon God's will I lay me down, 

As child upon its mother's breast, 
No silken couch nor softest bed 

Could ever give me such sweet rest. 

7. 
Thy wonderful, grand will, my God, 

With triumph now I make it mine, 
And love shall cry a jealous " Yes" 

To every dear command of thine. 

Be patient with yourself. I mean do not be dis- 
turbed because of your imperfections. I am glad 
that you make a new beginning every day. There 
is no better means of progressing in the spiritual 
life than to be continually beginning afresh. Be- 
cause perseverance is so difficult, even when sup- 
ported by the grace of God. Hence we see the value 
of new beginnings. New beginnings are the life of 
perseverance. 

Chastening is the school in which the blessed les- 
son is learned that the will of God is all love, and that 
holiness is the fire of love, consuming that it may pu- 
rify, destroying the dross only that it may assimilate 
into its own perfect purity all that yields itself to its 
working. 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 19 

Instantly shrink from every act that weaves the 
thinnest veil over the face of the loving Saviour. 

Daily Renewal. 

Let my faith cultivate large and clear apprehen- 
sions of the exceeding greatness of God's power in 
them that believe. As I thus abide in Christ the 
Holy Spirit of power will work mightily in me, and 
I shall sing "Jehovah is my strength and song." 

The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me, 
for he which hath begun a good work in me will per- 
form it until the day of Jesus Christ. 

Every morning renew my entire surrender, conse- 
cration, faith, and the anointing. 

By this course we should realize that our faith 
grows stronger and brighter every day. 

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and 
temperance. 

"I will go before and make the crooked places 
straight. I will break to pieces the gates of brass, 
I will break in sunder the bars of iron. Thou shalt 
guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive 
me to glory." 

Let the inner life, hid with Christ in God, hid also 
in the deep recesses of our inmost being, be acknowl- 
edged, accepted, and yielded to; it will work itself 
out in all the beauties of holiness. 

Christ would have us to see that the secret of effec- 
tual prayer is to have the heart filled with the love of 
God. 



20 A Little Gasket of Precious Jewels. 

Our very falls become new births to our souls if 
we rise again, and, in lowly penitence and sincere 
return, creep to the feet of Christ. His grace heals 
the wounds our sins have made, and restores our lives 
to strength and beauty; but it must never be forgotten 
that Christ alone can save us thus from our sins and 
transmute their evil into good. This wonderful al- 
chemy exists only in the Saviour's cross and blood. 

In spiritual life the highest state is one of hunger 
and thirst, an intense desire for more life, more ho- 
liness, more power, closer fellowship with God, more 
of the divine likeness in the soul. It is a deep long- 
ing for more and still more of all spiritual blessings: 
calmer rest, sweeter peace, more perfect contentment, 
richer heartfulness of Christ, and more and still more 
of all the gifts of the Spirit. 

Just in the measure in which we learn to live for 
spiritual and unseen things do we find contentment 
amid earth's trials and troubles. If we would live to 
please God, to build up Christlike character in our- 
selves, and to lay up treasures in heaven, we will not 
depend for happiness on the way things go with us 
here, nor on the measure of temporal good we have. 
We need this world less as we get more of God and 
heaven into our hearts. 

Even our mistakes and sins, if we leave them and 
find our way to Christ, will be transmuted into growth 
and the upbuilding of character. "We can so deal 
with the past that we can make it give up to us virtue 
and wisdom." We can make wrong the seed of 
right and righteousness. "We can transmute error 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 21 

into wisdom." We can make sorrow bloom into a 
thousand forms, like fragrant flowers. If we truly 
repent of our sins, then where they grew with their 
thousand poison seeds there will be in our lives trees 
and plants of beauty, with sweet flowers and rich 
fruit. 

Daily Petitions for Daily Blessings. 

1. That I may be delivered from every temptation 
to sin. 

2. That my self-abnegation may lead to self-f orget- 
fulness. 

3. That my will may be lost in God's will. 

4. That I may be filled with the Holy Spirit day by 
day. 

5. That I may be led of the Spirit all the time. 

6. That I may abide in Christ continually. 

7. That I may be full of faith and good works. 

8. That God may keep me filled with his perfect 
love. 

9. That I may learn to wait in silence God's time. 

10. That I may rightly understand the leading of 
the Spirit. 

11. That I may die daily to self and sin, and live to 
God only. 

12. That I may always obey the voice of my con- 
science. 

13. That I may follow Christ in his life of right- 
eousness. 



22 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

In receiving and retaining holiness four things are 
requisite: 

FIRST. 

I believe that a life in the holiest of all, a life of 
continual abiding in God's presence, is certainly my 
privilege and duty, and within my power by the 
grace of God. I look to God, who has set the door 
open and calls me in ; I look to the blood of Christ, that 
has moved every difficulty out of the way and gives 
me a boldness that nothing can hinder. I look to 
Jesus, my great High Priest, who brings me in and 
keeps me in. 

SECOND. 

The second thing is the surrender to Christ, by 
him to be brought into the life of abiding fellowship 
with God. This fellowship is my highest attain- 
ment. My surrender implies that I give up all — all 
of self, all of the flesh, an entire separation from the 
world, an acceptance of God's will in the place of 
my will to govern me in all things and at all times. 
My faith enables me to say: Lord, here am I, ready 
to be led by thee in the new and living way of death 
to my will, and a life in God's will alone. I give up 
all to thee. 

THIRD. 

The faith that Jesus does now accept and under- 
take all for me. I trust Jesus as my everlasting 
Priest-King on the throne, even now, at this moment, 
to take me within the veil, to take charge of me 
there, and enable me to worship God in his imme- 
diate presence. 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 23 

FOURTH. 

Then follows the life of faith in the holiest, hold- 
ing fast my confidence firm to the end, holding fast 
the rejoicing of my hope in God firm to the end, 
holding fast the boldness of my faith in the blood of 
Christ firm to the end. I believe Jesus takes me into 
the fulfillment and experience of all the new cove- 
nant blessings, and makes me inherit all the promises. 
I look to him day by day to seal my faith with 
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven in my heart. 
The soul that gives its life over to a life within the 
veil, in full surrender and simple faith, can count 
upon this most surely: that in the power of the 
Eternal, the Pentecostal Spirit in the heart, faith 
will become experience, and the joy unspeakable be 
its abiding portion. 

Hope is always in order for a child of God. No 
matter what God has done for us, or is doing, or 
seems likely to do, we ought to expect better times, 
better things, and yet better in the opening future. 

It ought to be so that the transcendent love of our 
Father should cause us to lose sight of all distinc- 
tions between those of his ways that please us and 
those that give us discomfort. 

Not the absence of dangers, but the hope of deliv- 
erance out of them, is the comfort of God's loved 
ones. This is his promise to every faithful believer: 
" When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not 
overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire 5 
thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame 



24 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

kindle upon thee. Fear not, for I am with thee. 
He that endureth to the end the same shall be saved." 

He is the hero who never gives up. God teaches 
by what he does in us. 

Not when things look bright, but when all is gone 
except God and self, is the time to endure and be 
brave and to evidence true manhood. Never to give 
up, but ever to keep up and to keep at it, is the duty 
and test of true heroism in times that are hard and 
in hours that are dark. 

Christ is the leader of our faith. He leads in 
the way of faith. He walks in it himself. He 
opened it for us. He draws us and keeps us in it. 
Jesus is the leader of the faith that through death 
enters the resurrection life and the holiest of all, that 
better and perfect thing, which God has provided 
for us. 

Looking to Jesus always and in all things. In 
trial and trouble, in joy and prosperity, in solitude 
and repose, in company and business, in religious 
worship and daily life. Always only looking to 
Jesus. 

Nothing fits us for work, nothing prepares us for 
suffering, like fellowship with God. But this is not 
the purpose of the quiet hour. Its purpose is to 
lead us into the presence of God, and to make God 
real to us. 

Under God's care we run no risks. 

Every contradiction of our will, every little ail- 
ment, every petty disappointment, will, if we take 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 25 

it patiently, become a blessing. So walking on 
earth, we may be in heaven. The ill-tempers of 
others, the slights and rudeness of the world, ill 
health, daily accidents, with which God has merciful- 
ly strewed our paths, instead of ruffling and disturb- 
ing our peace, may cause his peace to be shed abroad 
in our hearts abundantly. 

Be not afraid of those trials which God may see fit 
to send upon thee. It is with the winds and storms 
of tribulation that God separates the true wheat 
from the chaff. Always remember that God comes 
to thee in thy sorrows as really as in thy joys. He 
lays low and he builds up. Thou wilt find thyself 
far from perfection if thou dost not find God in 
everything. 

True greatness shows itself in ignoring or quickly 
forgetting personal injuries, when meaner natures 
would be left in unrest by them. The less of a man 
one is the more he makes of an injury or insult. 
The more of a man he is the less he is disturbed by 
what others do or say against him. 

It is fellowship with God, and not service, which 
sets us free from self. It was when Enoch walked 
with God that he was not. 

Evil Tempek. 

We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very 
harmless weakness. We speak of it as an infirmity 
of nature, family failing, a matter of temperament, 
not a thing to take into very serious account in es- 
timating human character. And yet right here in 



26 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

the heart of this analysis of love it finds a place, 
while the Bible again and again condemns it as one 
of the most destructive elements of human nature. 

The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice 
of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an oth- 
erwise noble character. You know men who are all 
but perfect, and women who would be entirely per- 
fect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or 
touchy disposition. This connection of ill temper 
with high moral character is one of the strongest 
and saddest problems of ethics. 

No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of 
gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to unchris- 
tianize society than evil temper. 

A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of 
generosity, a want of courtesy, are all instantaneous- 
ly symbolized in one flash of temper. 

We are spiritual men just in the measure in which 
the thought of God dominates and controls our life. 
But if the thought of God, or the consciousness of 
God, is to be driven deep into our life, until we be- 
come as God-conscious as we are self-conscious, we 
simply must wait on God day by day. 

We must study the Bible in dependence on the 
Spirit of God. We must remember that he who 
gave the word at first must give the word to us if it 
is to be spirit and life to our souls. 

Many are waiting to realize more, to have a clear- 
er sense of Christ's power and fullness, instead of at 
once stepping forward in the courage of faith that 



Sayings of the Wise and Good. 27 

God does supply all their need according to his riches 
in glory by Christ Jesus. 

By life we do not mean mere activity, outward zeal 
and energy, but spiritual power, that which elevates the 
soul above the world and brings us into fellowship 
with God, that which enables us to walk as Christ 
walked, which enables us to overcome as he over- 
came, and to be, to do, and to suffer according to the 
will of God. 

The ideal Christian life is one of insatiable thirst, 
never pausing in any harbor of spiritual content, but 
ever wooed on by visions of new joys and attain- 
ments. 



II. 

SCRIPTURE CITATIONS. 



SCRIPTURE CITATIONS. 



The Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will 
be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee : 
fear not, neither be dismayed. (Deut. xxxi. 8.) 

This one thing I do, forgetting those things which 
are behind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, I press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 
(Phil. iii. 13, 14.) 

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every- 
thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in 
Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thess. v. 16-18. ) 

Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a 
good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: 
for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou 
goest. (Josh. i. 9. ) 

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ. (Eph. iv. 13.) 

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like 
men, be strong. (1 Cor. xvi. 13.) 

Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the 
door of my lips. (Ps. cxli. 3. ) 

There shall no evil befall thee. (Ps. xci. 10.) 



32 A Little Gasket of Precious Jewels. 

If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect 
man, and able also to bridle the whole body. (Jas. 
iii. 2.) 

We may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I 
will not fear what man shall do unto me. (Heb. 
xiii. 6.) 

The God of peace make you perfect in every good 
work to do his will, working in you that which is well- 
pleasing in his sight. (Heb. xiii. 21.) 

God, who commanded the light to shine out of 
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. iv. 6.) 

We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image 
from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. 
(2 Cor. iii. 18.) 

This is the confidence that we have in God, that, if 
we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: 
and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we 
ask, we know that we have the petitions that we de- 
sired of him. (1 John v. 14, 15.) 

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, 
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 
(Phil. iv. 7.) 

God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of 
power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Tim. i. 7.) 

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. 
(Jas. i. 12.) 



Scripture Citations, 33 

Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
promise of the life that now is, and of that which is 
to come. (1 Tim. iv. 8.) 

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; 
for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will 
keep thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right 
hand of my righteousness. (Isa. xli. 10.) 

He shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and 
meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every 
good work. (2 Tim. ii. 21.) 

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the 
affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath 
chosen him to be a soldier. (2 Tim. ii. 4. ) 

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he 
shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve 
thy going out and thy coming in from this time 
forth, and even for evermore. (Ps. cxxi. 7, 8.) 

Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he 
shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. 
(Ps. xxvii. 14.) 

Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within 
me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, 
and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all 
thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who 
redeemeththy life from destruction. (Ps. ciii. 1-3.) 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the 
days of my life : and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 
forever. (Ps. xxiii. 6.) 

Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend 
in one point, he is guilty of all. (Jas. ii. 10. ) 
3 



34 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
strength; they shall mount up with wings as ea- 
gles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall 
walk, and not faint. (Isa. xl. 31.) 

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most 
holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep your- 
selves in the love of God. ( Jude 20, 21. ) 

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and 
to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; 
and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godli- 
ness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to 
brotherly kindness, charity. (2 Pet. i. 5-7.) 

Though our outward man perish, yet the inward 
man is renewed day by day. (2 Cor. iv. 16. ) 

Praying always with all prayer and supplication 
in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perse- 
verance and supplication for all saints. (Eph. 
vi. 18.) 

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God 
may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good 
works. (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.) 

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind 
is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. (Isa. 
xxvi. 3.) 

Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory; while we look not at the things which 
are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for 



Scripture Citations, 35 

the things which are seen are temporal; but the things 
which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.) 

Though 1 walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Ps. xxiii. 4. ) 

We know that, if our earthly house of this taber- 
nacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
(2 Cor. v. 1.) 

Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and 
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, 
but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in 
his deed. ( Jas. i. 25.) 

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and 
precious promises; that by these ye might be par- 
takers of the divine nature, having escaped the cor- 
ruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Pet. 
i. 4.) 

The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us 
from all sin. (1 John i. 7.) 

If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Fa- 
ther, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John ii. 1. ) 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- 
righteousness. (1 John i. 9.) 

That ye might be filled with the knowledge of 
his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 
that we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all 
pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and 
increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened 



36 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

with all might, according to his glorious power, 
unto all patience and long-suffering with joy ful- 
ness. (Col. i. 9-11.) 

That God would grant you, according to the riches 
of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his 
Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in 
your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with 
all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, 
and height; and to know the love of Christ, which 
passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all 
the fullness of God. (Eph. iii. 16-19. ) 

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth 
in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made 
perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judg- 
ment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There 
is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: 
because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not 
made perfect in love. (1 John iv. 16-18. ) 

Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy pres- 
ence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are 
pleasures for evermore. (Ps. xvi. 11.) 

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is 
none upon earth that I desire beside thee. (Ps. 
lxxiii. 25.) 

The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of 
my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are 
fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a good- 
ly heritage. (Ps. xvi. 5, 6. ) 

None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth 
to himself. For whether we live, we live unto 



Scripture Citations, 37 

the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the 
Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the 
Lord's. (Rom. xiv. 7, 8.) 

If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we 
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 
John i. 7.) 

Come. 

Come thou with us, and we will do thee good. 
(Num. x. 29.) 

I come to thee in the name of the Lord. (1 Sam. 
xvii. 45.) 

When wilt thou come to me? (Ps. ci. 2.) 

All the days of my appointed time will 1 wait, till 
my change come. (Job xiv. 14.) 

The redeemed shall come with singing unto Zion. 
(Isa. li. 11.) 

Come, ye blessed of my Father. (Matt. xxv. 34.) 

Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace. (Heb. 
iv. 16.) 

All things are ready: come. (Matt. xxii. 4.) 

Occupy till I come. (Luke xix. 13. ) 

Happy. 

Happy is the man whom God correcteth. (Job 
v. 17. ) 

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. 
(Ps. cxlvi. 5.) 



88 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he. (Pro v. 

xvi. 20.) 

He that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Prov. 
xxix. 18.) 

Perfect. 

Stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. 
(Col. iv. 12.) 

That we may present every man perfect in Christ. 
(Col. i. 28.) 

God make you perfect in every good work. (Heb. 
xiii. 21. ) 

That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting noth- 
ing. (Jas. i. 4.) 

Mark the perfect man, for the end of that man is 
peace. (Ps. xxxvii. 37.) 

Fear Not. 
Peace be to you, fear not. (Gen. xliii. 23. ) 

I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, . . . 
fear not. (Isa. xliii. 13. ) 

Fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee. 
(Gen. xx vi. 24.) 

Patience. 

In your patience possess ye your souls. (Luke 
xxi. 19.) 

Let patience have its perfect work. (Jas. i. 4. ) 

Ye have need of patience. (Heb. x. 36.) 

That the aged men be . . . sound in < . . 
patience. (Tit. ii. 2. ) 



Scripture Citations. 39 

Deliverance. 

Our God ... is able to deliver us. (Dan. 
iii. 17.) 

I am with thee to deliver thee. ( Jer. i. 8. ) 

The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. (Ps. 
xli. 1.) 

Keep. 

The Lord . . . will keep thee. (Isa. xlii. 6. ) 

He is able to keep you from falling. ( Jude 24. ) 

Keep yourselves in the love of God. (Jude 21.) 

Kept. 

He kept him as the apple of his eye. (Deut. 
xxxii. 10.) 

Kept by the power of God through faith unto sal- 
vation. (1 Pet. i. 5. ) 

Always. 

I have set the Lord always before me. (Ps. xvi. 

8.) 

I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world. (Matt, xxviii. 20.) 

God . . . always causeth us to triumph. (2 
Cor. ii. 14. ) 

Answer. 
Before they call I will answer. (Isa. lxv. 21. ) 
The Lord will answer him. (Ezek. xiv. 4.) 



40 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Axl. 
The Lord . . . delivereth them out of all their 
troubles. (Ps. xxxiv. 17.) 

All are yours; and ye are Christ's. (1 Cor. 
iii. 22, 23.) 

That they all may be one. (John xvii. 21.) 

Praise. 

While I live will I praise the Lord. (Ps. cxlvi. 2. ) 

I will praise thee . . . with my whole heart. 
(Ps. ix. 1.) 

Pray. 

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray. 
(Ps. lv. 17.) 

I wall . . . that men pray everywhere. (1 
Tim. ii. 8.) 

Pray without ceasing. (1 Thess. v. 17.) 

Ask. 
Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye 
shall receive. (Matt. xxi. 22.) 

Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give 
it thee. (Mark vi. 22.) 

If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. 
(John xiv. 14.) 

Strength. 
Let him take hold of my strength. (Isa. xxvii. 5. ) 

I will go in the strength of the Lord. (Ps. 
lxxi. 16. ) 

My God shall be my strength. (Isa. xlix. 5.) 



Scripture Citations. 41 

Hope. 

Happy is he . . . whose hope is in the Lord. 
(Ps. cxlvi. 5.) 

Our hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Tim. i. 

i.) 

That your faith and hope might be in God. ( 1 Pet. 
i. 21.) 

We are saved by hope. (Rom. viii. 24.) 

Rejoicing in hope firm to the end. (Heb. iii. 6.) 

Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. 
(Col. i. 23.) 

Joy. 

The joy of the Lord is your strength. (Neh. viii. 
10.) 

In thy presence is fullness of joy. (Ps. xvi. 

no 

Enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (Matt. xxv. 
21.) 

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. (Ps. li. 
12.) 

Your joy no man taketh from you. (John xvi. 

22.) 

Rejoice. 

Rejoice in hope of the glorv of God. (Rom. v. 
2.) 

In thy name shall they rejoice all the day. (Ps. 
lxxxix. 16. ) 



42 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

The Lord will rejoice over thee with joy. (Zeph. 
iii. 17.) 

The righteous doth sing and rejoice. (Prov. xxix. 
6.) 

Peace. 

My peace I give unto you. (John xiv. 27. ) 

The kingdom of God is joy and peace. (Rom. 
xiv. 17.) 

1 will give you assured peace. (Jer. xiv. 13.) 

The end of the upright is peace. (Ps. xxxvii. 37.) 

Trust. 

The Lord knoweth them that trust in him. (Nah. 
i. 7.) 

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. (Job 
xiii. 15.) 

Blessed is the man who maketh the Lord his trust. 
(Ps. xl. 1.) 

Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell 
in the land. (Ps. xxxvii. 3.) 

Love. 

I have loved thee with an everlasting love. (Jer. 
xxxi. 3. ) 

I pray that your love may abound. (Phil. i. 9. ) 

By love serve one another. (Gal. v. 13.) 

Perfect love casteth out fear. (1 John iv. 18. J 

He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 
John iv. 18. ) 



Scripture Citations. 43 

Old Age. 

Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as 
a shock of corn cometh in in his season. (Job v. 26. ) 

Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be 
buried in a good old age. (Gen. xv. 15.) 

Even to your old age I arn he; even to hoar hairs 
will I carry you: ... I will carry, and will 
deliver you. (Isa. xlvi. 4.) 

The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found 
in the way of righteousness. (Pro v. xvi. 31.) 

They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. (Ps. 
xcii. 14.) 

Faith. 

This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
our faith. (1 John v. 4.) 

All things are possible to him that believeth. 
(Markix. 23.) 

Your faith groweth exceedingly. (2 Thess. i. 3.) 

Thy faith hath saved thee. (Luke vii. 50.) 

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved. (Acts xvi. 31. ) 

Now is the accepted time. (2 Cor. vi. 2.) 

Now, Lord, my hope is in thee. (Ps. xxxix. 7. ) 

Come; for all things are now ready. (Luke xiv. 
17.) 

Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. (Ps. cxviii. 25. ) 



44 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

To-Day. 

To-day the Lord will appear unto you. (Lev. 
ix. 4.) 

Go work to-day in my vineyard. (Matt. xxi. 28. ) 

Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord. (Ex. 
xxxii. 29.) 

Hold. 

The righteous shall hold on his way. (Job xvii. 9. ) 

Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe. (Ps. cxix. 
117.) 

I . . . will hold thine hand, and will keep thee. 
(Isa. xlii. 6.) 

Hold up my goings in thy paths. (Ps. xvii. 5. ) 

Hold fast that which is good. (1 Thess. v. 21. ) 

Live. 
The just shall live by faith. (Heb. x. 38. ) 
Seek ye me, and ye shall live. (Amos v. 4.) 
This do, and thou shalt live. (Luke x. 28. ) 

Mercy. 

Thou, O Lord, art . . . plenteous in mercy. 
(Ps. lxxxvi. 5.) 

I trust in the mercy of God forever. (Ps. Hi. 8.) 

The Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting. (Ps. 
c. 5.) 

Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. (Ps. 
lxxxix. 14.) 



Scripture Citations. 45 

Call. 

Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will de- 
liver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Ps. 1. 15. ) 

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him. 
(Ps. cxlv. 18.) 

Call unto me, and I will answer thee. ( Jer. xxxiii. 
3.) 

Before they call I will answer. (Isa. lxv. 24. ) 
Confidence. 

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put con- 
fidence in man. (Ps. cxviii. 8.) 

The Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall 
keep thy foot. (Prov. iii. 26.) 

In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. 
(Isa. xxx. 15.) 

We have no confidence in the flesh. (Phil. iii. 3.) 

Cast not away . . . your confidence, which 
hath great recompense of reward. (Heb. x. 35.) 



III. 

RELIGIOUS EXERCISES IN WAIT- 
ING ON GOD. 



RELIGIOUS EXERCISES IN WAIT- 
ING ON GOD. 

It is the God of truth — not truth in speaking only 
or truth of doctrine, but truth of existence or life in 
its divine reality; and Christ is the truth, the actual 
embodiment of this divine life. There is a kingdom 
of truths, of divine, spiritual realities, of which Christ 
is King. And of all this truth of God in Christ the 
very essence is the Spirit. He is the Spirit of 
truth, and leads us into it; so we are of the truth 
and walk in it. The Spirit of truth is the Holy 
Spirit. 

It is the work of the Father to make us holy in 
the truth. Let us bow very lowly in childlike trust 
as we breathe the prayer: Holy Father, make us 
holy in the truth. It is the Spirit of truth through 
whom the Father does his work; so that we can 
dwell in the truth and the truth in us. Let us yield 
very freely and very fully to the Spirit. As the 
Son prays, the Father may make us holy in the 
truth. 

The teaching of the Spirit is first in the heart. 
The teaching of man is in the mind. Let all our 
thinking teach us to cease from thought and to 
open our heart and will to the Spirit to teach us his 
own divine way — deeper than thought and feeling. 

The word of God is full of divine Spirit and pow- 
er, and can work mightily. The heart of the be- 
4 



50 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

liever has the same divine Spirit through whom the 
word is accepted in living power. 

It is not in having glorious thoughts and impres- 
sions, at times, of our Lord's glory that can satisfy 
us. It is Christ himself glorified in us, in our per- 
sonal life, in the way of a divine and heavenly power 
uniting his life with ours in glory. It is this alone 
that can satisfy his heart and ours. 

Believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. Exer- 
cise this faith all the time. Yield yourselves whole- 
heartedly to his leading, as to one who has the entire 
control of your life. Then wait in very lowly humil- 
ity and dependence on his further teaching and the 
fuller experience of his indwelling and work. You 
may be sure the word will be fulfilled. You know 
him, for he shall be in you. 

Though true disciples, they had to let go, to lose, 
to die to their old way of knowing Christ, and to re- 
ceive as a gift an entirely new life of intercourse 
with Christ. O that Christians could see the more 
excellent way of living a holy life — the Spirit of 
Christ dwelling within them, revealing and main- 
taining the presence of their Lord in power! 

O that God may teach us this lesson: that the one 
great work of the Spirit of Christ is to make the glo- 
rified Jesus always present in us, not in thought and 
memory only, but within us, in our inmost parts, in 
our lives and experience. 

Waiting on God includes the denial of self, its 
wisdom, its strength, separation of all else, surren- 
der, and preparedness for all the Spirit would claim; 



Heligions Exercises in Waiting on God. 51 

joyful faith in what Christ is, and a confident expec- 
tation of what he is going to do. 

We wait on the Father and the Son for ever-in- 
creasing inflowings and workings of the Holy Spirit 
— a river of living water that never cea,ses to flow. 

Let us live in the faith that the Spirit of power is 
within us, and the Father will, as we wait on him, fill 
us with the power of the Spirit. 

Let us learn how to abide in Christ, and the secret 
of taking him as the power with which to overcome 
every form of evil. 

The clothing with power from on high, the receiv- 
ing the power of the Holy Ghost, takes place in a way 
quite different from our natural expectations. It is 
a divine power working in human weakness; the 
sense of weakness is not taken away. The power is 
not given as something we possess. We have the 
power only as we have the Lord himself. He exerts 
the power in human weakness. 

May Christ show us how entirely he can dispossess 
the life of the flesh, and himself become our entire 
new life in us! It is no longer I that live, but Christ 
that liveth in me. 

The Spirit is the Spirit of faith, deeper than thought. 
Let us be of good courage. Our faith is in the keep- 
ing of the Spirit. 

All tends to this one point: the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit must be our one care, in the faith that 
holds the promise, in tender watchfulness that waits 
and follows his leading, in the entire surrender of 



52 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

the flesh to the death, that he alone may rule and 
lead. Let us yield to our beloved Lord to fill us with 
the Spirit. The Spirit will do his work. 

That we, being delivered out of the hand of our 
enemies, might serve God without fear, in holiness 
and righteousness before him, all the days of our 
life. (Luke i. 74, 75.) 

Faith is the living faculty of the soul through 
which the believer waits on God, listens to what he 
says, has fellowship with God. It is as this habit of 
soul is cultivated, and as the whole life we live is by 
faith, that the Spirit enters freely and flows fully. 

The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. If our 
spirit be filled with the Spirit of God, it will mani- 
fest itself in the body also. If we through the spirit 
mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live. Let us 
believe that the Divine Spirit is specially given to 
pervade, to purify, and to strengthen our body for 
his service. It is his indwelling in the body that 
makes it a living seed that can share in the resurrec- 
tion life. 

Filled with the Spirit. It is not in the emotions, 
not in conscious light or power or joy, that the fill- 
ing of the Spirit must be sought, but in the inner 
life, the inmost part, deeper than knowledge or feel- 
ing; in the region to which faith gives access, and 
where we are in our personality. 

To read and think, to long and pray, to consecrate 
ourselves, to grasp the promises, to believe that the 
Holy Spirit dwells in us — all this is good in its place, 
but it does not bring the blessing. The one thing 



Religious Exercises in Waiting on God. 53 

needful is to have the heart filled with the living 
God; in that faith to abide in living touch with him; 
in that faith to wait and worship before his holy 
presence. In such fellowship with God the Holy 
Spirit fills the heart and makes the soul to rejoice. 

The soul that truly hears Jesus speak the wx>rds 
" Abide in me" receives with the words the power to 
accept and hold the blessing of abiding in him. 
Blessed rest! With this grace secured, we have 
strength for every duty, courage for every struggle, 
a blessing in every cross, and the joy of life eternal 
in death itself. 

Let us learn that conscious abiding in Christ every 
moment, day and night, is indeed what God has 
prepared for them that love him. Our abiding in 
Christ is more than a fellowship of love; it is a fel- 
lowship of life. 

Such is the life of a true believer. Instead of rest- 
ing content with past experience or present attain- 
ment, he presses on. Forgetting and giving up all 
that is behind, he reaches out to the fullest possibili- 
ties of Christian experience. 

Believe that the Holy Spirit is working mightily as 
we ask it of the Father. It is impossible to live a 
life of full abiding without being full of the Holy 
Spirit. Believe that the fullness of the Spirit is our 
daily portion. Cultivate carefully the habit of daily 
and continually honoring him by a quiet, restful con- 
fidence that he is doing his work in us. Faith trusts 
the working of the Spirit unseen in the deep recesses 
of the inner life. 



54 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

The path of entire consecration is the path of full 
salvation. Not only what is given up is received 
back again to become doubly our own, but forsaking 
all is followed by receiving all. The interchange of 
giving up and taking in is a life process, and may not 
cease for a moment. No sooner does the believer be- 
gin to rejoice in the possession of what he has than 
the inflow of new grace is retarded, threatening stag- 
nation. 

Each blessed experience we receive as a gift of God 
must at once be returned to him in praise, in love, 
and in service, to be returned to us fresh and beauti- 
ful with the bloom of heaven. 

In affliction abide in Christ. When thou seest it 
coming, meet it in Christ. When it is come, feel 
that thou art more in Christ than in it; for he is 
nearer thee than affliction ever can be. When it is 
passing, still abide in Jesus. 

If we really depended on Christ in all things and 
at all times, we would in all things and at all times 
gain the victory through Jesus, to whom all power 
is given in heaven and on earth. 

He that abides in Christ, our risen and glorified 
Lord, becomes in the same way partaker of his glo- 
rified life and the glory with which he was crowned 
in heaven. 

I see that abiding in Christ is not a matter of mo- 
ments or special seasons, but a deep life process, in 
which, by his keeping power, I continue without a 
moment's intermission, and from which I act out all 
my Christian life. I feel emboldened really to take 



Religious Exercises in Waiting on God. 55 

him in everything as my example, because I am sure 
that the hidden, inner union and likeness must work 
itself out into a visible likeness in walk and conduct. 

Jesus saves me now. He keeps me now. Let sin 
and failure, instead of discouraging us, only urge us 
still more in abiding in Christ. 

Abiding is a grace in which we can grow wonder- 
fully, if we will persevere with ever-increasing ex- 
pectation. 

By the Holy Spirit Jesus himself maintains in the 
heart of the true believer the power of the cross as 
an abiding death to self and sin and a never-ceasing 
source of resurrection life and power. Therefore look 
to him as the living, crucified Jesus. Keep your 
eye of faith fixed on him all the time, in all places, 
under all circumstances. 

There is not a blessing which Christ has purchased 
by his precious death which does not belong to the 
believer, and he glorifies God more when he claims 
all these blessings than when he takes only some of 
them. They all become ours in the same way, through 
the Holy Spirit and by faith. 

There is no proof of the reality of God's love and 
the blessing he bestows which men so feel the force 
of as when the joy of God overcomes all the trials of 
this life. The joy of the Lord is his strength. Con- 
fidence and patience and courage find their inspira- 
tion in joy. With a heart full of joy, no work can 
weary, no burden can depress. God is my strength 
and my song. Thanks be unto God, who always 
causeth me to triumph! 



56 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Claim the joy as part of the abiding life and as 
the blessed proof of the sufficiency of Christ to sat- 
isfy every need of the soul. Be happy. Cultivate 
gladness. " Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceas- 
ing. In everything give thanks." 

The weakest believer may be confident that, in 
asking to be kept from sin, to grow in grace, to 
bring forth much fruit, he may count on these peti- 
tions being fulfilled with divine power. The power 
is in Jesus. Jesus is ours, with all his fullness. It is 
in us, his members, that the power is to work and be 
made manifest. 

Christ gives his power in us by giving his life in 
us. It is in giving his own life to us that he gives 
us his power. Hence we are commanded to be strong 
in the Lord and in the power of his might. He gives 
along with it the consciousness of strength in him. 

The life which I now live, this present moment — 
this is the great business of the believer. He has 
to do only with time in the present tense. How un- 
speakable is the rest into which the believer enters 
when the Lord is fully trusted as his keeper, when 
he commits the keeping of his soul into Christ's 
hands! 

Make Christ first in everything. Live absolutely 
for him. Receive from him your words to speak, your 
work to do, and all the power of your life. When 
in any emergency or need, receive from him the 
power to meet it. Reckon absolutely upon Christ, 
and meet his will in everything, as he when on 
earth met his Father's will in everything. 



Religious Exercises in Waiting on God. 57 

We are commanded to enter into one with Christ. 
We are exhorted to lay down our own life, that his 
life may be lived in us. We are asked to have no in- 
terest but his, to share his riches, to enter into his joys, 
to partake of his sorrows, to manifest his likeness, 
to have the same mind, to think and feel, to act and 
walk as he did. We must be convinced that the 
Scriptures teach this glorious indwelling of God. 
Then we must surrender our whole selves to be pos- 
sessed by him. We must also believe that he has 
truly taken possession of us and is dwelling in us. We 
must reckon ourselves all the time dead to sin and 
alive to God in Christ. We must maintain this atti- 
tude of soul unwaveringly. 

As bodily sight is a function of healthy animal 
life, so spiritual life comes only out of healthy spir- 
itual life. Life truths can be known only by liv- 
ing them. The Spirit life can be known only by 
living in the Spirit. Where faith exercises itself in 
accepting and yielding to the life of the Spirit in the 
hidden part, there its ear will be opened and the 
voice of the Spirit will be heard. The Spirit of life 
is the Spirit of truth within you. 

We must continually put self to death in all the 
details of daily life, and must let Christ instead live 
and work in us. 



IV. 

EXPEKIMENTAL AND PKACTICAL 

CHRISTIANITY. 



EXPERIMENTAL AND PRACTICAL 
CHRISTIANITY. 

Sufficiency of Christianity. 

If Christianity is to be a success, if Christ is to 
save completely, there must be a provision, sufficient 
and efficacious, to prevent suffering from causing dis- 
couragement or defeat, and to transform it into a 
blessing and a help. If it can enable us to rejoice in 
tribulation, to glory in infirmities, and to pass un- 
harmed through trial, it will indeed be the religion 
men need in a world of suffering. He that has this 
secret whereby what have been hindrances become 
helps, and his very enemies become his friends, is on 
the way to be the Christian God would have him be. 
Need we say that in Christianity such a provision 
is found, according to the testimony of all God's 
faithful people who have passed safely through this 
suffering world to their blissful home in heaven ? 

;Use Everything ks from God. 

Give yourself up to God without reserve, in sin- 
gleness of heart, meeting everything that every day 
brings forth as something that comes from God, and 
is to be received and gone through by you in such a 
heavenly use of it as you would suppose the holy Jesus 
would have done in such occurrences. This is an at- 
tainable perfection. (William Law.) 



62 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

The Steadfastness of Christianity. 

We need a religion that stands fast and lasts. It 
has its steadfastness in the promise and the oath of 
God; in the hope within the veil; in him, the Surety 
of the covenant, who is seated on the right hand of 
God, the Priest after the power of an endless life, the 
Surety of an everlasting covenant. 

We have entered the holiest of all. We have in 
faith claimed God's presence and the life of abiding 
continually in it as our portion, and we have the 
great High Priest over the house of God to make it 
all true and sure to us. Surely it needs no words to 
urge us to make faith — faith alone, the faith of the 
heart — the unceasing sacrifice we bring our God. So 
may we too say: We are not of them that draw back, 
but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. 

Live According to Your Lot. 

We ought to measure our actual lot and to fulfill it; 
to be, with all our strength, that which our lot re- 
quires and allows. What is beyond it is no calling 
of ours. How much peace, quiet, and confidence and 
strength would people attain if they would only go 
by this plain rule! (H. E. Manning.) 

The Pearl of Eternity. 

This pearl of eternity is the Church or temple of 
God within you, the consecrated place of divine wor- 
ship, where alone thou canst worship God in spirit 
and in truth. When once thou art well grounded in 
this inward worship, thou wilt have learned to live 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 63 

unto God above time and place. For every day will 
be Sunday to you; and wherever thou goest thou wilt 
have a priest, a church, and an altar along with thee. 
When God has all of thy heart; when thou art wholly 
given up to the obedience of the light and Spirit of 
God within thee, to will only in his will, to love only 
in his love, to be wise only in his wisdom— then it is 
that everything thou dost is a song of praise, and the 
common business of thy life is a conforming to God's 
will on earth, as angels do in heaven. (William 
Law. ) 

Suffer with Submission. 

Learn to be as the angel who could descend among 
the miseries of Bethesda without losing his heavenly 
purity or his perfect happiness. Gain healing from 
troubled waters. Make up your mind to the prospect 
of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in 
your passage through life. By the blessing of God 
this will prepare you for it. It will make you re- 
signed without interfering with your cheerfulness. 
(I. H. Newman.) 

Faith in the Providence of God. 

God is holy. He alone knows how to lead his chil- 
dren in the path of holiness. He knows every aspect 
of your soul, every thought of your mind, every se- 
cret of your heart — its difficulties and hindrances. He 
knows how to mold you to his will and lead you on- 
ward to perfect sanctification. He knows exactly 
how each event, each trial and each temptation, will 
tell upon you, and he disposes all things accordingly. 
The consequences of this belief, if fully grasped, will 



64 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

influence your whole life. You will seek to give your- 
self up to God more and more unreservedly, asking, 
refusing nothing but wiiat he wills. You will be 
satisfied, though there are clouds around and your 
way seems dark. He is directing all, and will make 
everything work to your good. (I. N. Grou. ) 

An Ever-Present Now. 

We are to Him with whom there is no past or fu- 
ture, with whom a day is as a thousand years and a 
thousand years as one day, when we do our work in 
the great present, leaving both past and future to him 
to whom they are as ever present, and fearing nothing 
because he is in our future as much as he was in our 
past, as much as and far more than we can feel him to 
be in our present. Partakers thus of the divine na- 
ture, resting in him in whom our nature is eternal 
too, we walk without fear, full of hope, courage, and 
strength to do his will, waiting for the endless good 
which he is always giving. ( G. MacDonald. ) 

Be Satisfied with Our Lot. 

He that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, 
is very much in love for sorrow and peevishness who 
loses all these pleasures and chooses to sit down upon 
his little handful of thorns. Enjoy the blessings of 
this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear 
patiently and sweetly, for this day only is ours; we 
are dead to yesterday, and we are not born to the 
morrow. But if we look abroad, and bring into one 
day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncer- 
tain, what will be and what will never be, our load 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 65 

will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable. (Jeremy- 
Taylor.) 

How to Take Our Troubles. 

Receive every inward and outward trouble, every 
disappointment, pain, and uneasiness, temptation, 
darkness, desolation, with both hands, as a true op- 
portunity and blessed occasion of dying to self and 
entering into fuller fellowship with thy self-denying, 
suffering Saviour. Look at no inward or outward 
trouble in any other light, reject every thought about 
it, and then every kind of trial and distress will be- 
come the blessed day of our prosperity. 

That state is best which exercises the highest faith 
in God and fullest resignation to his will. (William 
Law. ) 

We take with solemn thankfulness 
Our burden up, nor ask it less, 
And count it joy that even we 
May suffer, serve, or wait for thee, 
Whose will be done. 

(J. G. Whittier. ) 

Have No Fearful Forebodings. 

Do not look forward to the chances and changes 
of this life in fear; rather look to them in full 
hope that as they arise God, whose you are, will 
deliver you out of them. He has kept you hith- 
erto. Do you but hold fast to his dear hand, 
and he will lead you safely through all things; and 
when you cannot stand, he will bear you in his 
arms. Do not look forward to what may happen 
5 



66 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

to-morrow. The same everlasting Father who cares 
for you to-day will take care of you to-morrow 
and every day. Either he will shield you from 
suffering, or he will give you unfailing strength 
to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anx- 
ious thoughts and imaginations. (Francis De Sales.) 

It is as we know ourselves freed from sin, deliv- 
ered from the hand of all our enemies, that we shall 
serve God in righteousness and holiness all the days 
of our life. 

God Will Take Us Safely Through. 

Out of obedience and devotion arises an habitual 
faith which makes him, though unseen, a part of all 
our life. He will guide in a w T ay, a sure path, though 
it be a rough one. Though shadows hang upon it, 
yet he is with us. He will bring us home at last. 
Through much trial it may be, and weariness, in 
much fear and fainting of heart, in much sadness 
and loneliness, in grief the world never know T s, and 
burdens that the nearest never suspect; yet he will 
suffice for all. By his eye or his voice he will guide 
us if we be obedient; by his staff and his rod, if 
we wander or are willful; anyhow and by all means 
he will bring us to his rest. (H. E. Manning.) 

Avoid Improper Excitement. 

Do not be discouraged at your faults; bear with 
yourself in correcting them. Lay aside this ardor of 
mind which exhausts your body and causes you to 
commit errors. Accustom yourself gradually to 
carry prayer into all your daily occupations. Speak, 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 67 

move, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as in- 
deed you ought to be. By the help of grace do 
everything without excitement. As soon as you see 
your impetuosity gliding in, retire quietly within, 
where is the kingdom of God. Listen to the lead- 
ings of grace; then say and do nothing but what the 
Holy Spirit should put in your heart. You will find 
that you will become more tranquil, that your words 
will be fewer and more effectual, and thus you will 
accomplish more good. (Fenelon. ) 

Commit All to God. 

Cast all thy care on God. In doing so see that 
you hold none back. Never brood over thyself; 
never stop short in thyself, but cast thy whole self, 
even this very care w^hich distresseth thee, upon God. 
Be not anxious about little things, if thou wouldst 
trust God with thine all. Act upon faith in little 
things. Commit thy daily cares and anxieties to 
God, and he will strengthen thy faith for greater 
trials. Rather give thy whole self into God's hands, 
and so trust him to take care of thee in all little things 
as greater ones, as being his for his own sake, whose 
thou art. (E. B. Pusey.) 

Don't Let Ugly Thoughts Trouble Thee. 

Heed not distressing thoughts when they arise 
even so strongly in thee; nay, though they have 
entered thee, fear them not, but be still awhile, not 
believing in the power which thou f eelest they have 
over thee, and it will fall on a sudden. It is good 
for thy spirit and greatly to thy advantage to be 
much and variously exercised by the Lord. Thou 



68 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

dost not know what the Lord hath already done and 
what he is doing for thee therein. (I. Penington.) 

Patience. 

We have need of patience with ourselves and 
with others; with those below and those alcove us, 
and with our own equals; with those who love us, 
and with those who love us not; for the greatest 
things and for the least; against sudden inroads of 
trouble, and under our daily burdens; disappoint- 
ments as to the weather, or the breaking of the 
heart; in the weariness of the body or the wearing 
of the soul; or in our failure of duty, or others' failures 
toward us; in everyday wants, or in the aching of 
sickness, or the decay of old age; in disappointment, 
bereavement, injuries, reproaches; in heaviness of 
the heart. In all these things, from childhood's 
little troubles to the martyr's sufferings, patience is 
the grace of God whereby we endure evil for the 
love of God. (E. B. Pusey.) # 

The Spirit of Love. 

The spirit of love, wherever it is, is its own bless- 
ing and happiness, because it is the truth and reality 
of God in the soul, and therefore is the same joy 
of life and is the same good to itself everywhere and 
on every occasion. Would you know the blessing of 
all blessings? It is the God of love dwelling in your 
soul and killing every root of bitterness, which is 
the pain and torment of every earthly, selfish love. 
For all wants are satisfied, all disorders of nature are 
removed, and life is no longer a burden; every day 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 69 

is a day of peace; everything you meet becomes a 
help to you, because everything you see or do is all 
done in the sweet, gentle spirit of love. (William 
Law.) 

Trust in God. 

Though every good man cannot demonstrate his 
own immortality, yet he sees it in a higher light; 
his soul being purged and enlightened by true sanc- 
tity, it is more capable of those divine irradiations 
whereby it feels itself in conjunction with God. It 
knows that God will never forsake his own life which 
he has quickened in it. He will never deny those 
ardent desires of a blissful fruition of himself which 
the lively sense of his own goodness hath excited 
within it. Those breathings and gaspings after an 
eternal participation of him are but the energy of 
his own breath within us. If he had had any mind 
to destroy, he would never have shown it such things 
as he has done. (Dr. John Smith.) 

Trust in God. 

This is the same subject as the former, but by a 
different author. Strive to see God in all things, 
without exception, and acquiesce in his will with ab- 
solute submission. Do everything for God, uniting 
yourself to him by a mere upward glance or by the 
overflowing of your heart toward him. Never be in 
a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. 
Do not lose your inward peace for anything, even if 
the whole world seems upset. Commend all to God, 
and then be still and be at rest in his bosom. What- 
ever happens, abide steadfast in a determination to 



70 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

cling simply to God, trusting in his eternal love for 
you. If you find that you have wandered from this 
shelter, recall your heart quietly and simply. Main- 
tain a holy simplicity of mind, and be not disturbed 
about anything. (Francis De Sales. ) 

See God in Everything. 

This is of faith, that everything, the very least or 
what seems to us great, every change of the seasons, 
everything which touches us in mind or body or es- 
tate, whether brought about through this outward, 
senseless nature or by the will of man, good or bad, 
is overruled to each of us by the all-holy and all-lov- 
ing will of God. Whatever befalls us, however it 
befalls us, we must receive it as the will of God. If 
it befalls us through man's negligence or ill will or 
anger, still it is, in every circumstance to us, the will 
of God. For if the least thing could happen to us 
without God's permission, it would be something be- 
yond God's control. God's providence would not be 
what it is, God himself would not be the same God, 
and not the God whom we believe, adore, and wor- 
ship. (E. B. Pusey. ) 

Thankfulness. 

If any one would tell you the shortest and surest 
way to all good and perfection, he must tell you to 
make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God 
for everything that happens to you. For it is cer- 
tain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, 
if you thank and praise God for it you turn it into a 
blessing. Could you therefore work miracles, you 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 71 

could not do more for yourself than by this thankful 
spirit. For it heals with a word-speaking, and turns 
all it touches into happiness. (William Law. ) 

It is natural to us (it was to the Son of God) to fear 
and feel suffering. In this desire there is nothing 
sinful. It becomes sinful only when God would have 
us submit and suffer, and we refuse. 

Look to God in Trouble. 

Whatever it is that presses thee, go tell thy Father; 
put the matter into his hands, and so thou shalt be 
freed from that perplexing care that the world is so 
full of. When thou art either to do or suffer any- 
thing, when thou art about any business, go tell God 
of it, and acquaint him with it; yea, burden him with 
it, and thou art done for matter of caring; no more 
care, but quiet, sweet diligence in thy duty, and de- 
pendence on him in the management of thy matters. 
Roll thy cares, and thyself with them as one burden, 
all on the Lord. (R. Leighton.) 

Look to God in Trouble, by Another Author. 

O that thou couldst dwell in the knowledge and 
sense of this, even that the Lord beholds thy sufferings 
with an eye of pity, and is able not only to uphold 
thee under them, but also to do thee good by them! 
Therefore grieve not at thy lot, be not discontented, 
look not at the burdens of the condition; but when 
the storm and matters of vexation are sharp look up 
to him who can give meekness and patience, can lift 
thy head over all, and cause thy life to grow and be 
a gainer by all. If the Lord help thee proportion- 



72 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

ately to thy condition of affliction and distress, thou 
wilt have no cause to complain, but to bless his name. 

Serve God in Everything. 

Surely the truth must be that whatever in our daily 
life is lawful and right for us to be engaged in is in 
itself a part of our obedience to God; a part, that is, 
of our very religion. Whenever we hear people com- 
plaining of obstructions and hindrances, putting the 
duties of life in the way of devoting themselves to God, 
we may be sure that they are under some false view. 
They do not look upon their work as the task that 
God has set them, and as obedience due to him. We 
may go farther, and say that not only are the duties 
of life, be they never so toilsome and distracting, no 
obstructions to a life of any degree of inward holiness, 
but that they are even direct means, when rightly 
used, to promote our sanctification. (H. E. Man- 
ning. ) 

Avoid All Little Sins. 

A simple sin, however apparently trifling, however 
hidden in some obscure corner of our consciousness, 
a sin which we do not intend to renounce, is enough 
to render real prayer impracticable; any kind of ac- 
tion not wholly upright and honorable; feelings not 
entirely kind and loving; habits not spotlessly chaste 
and temperate — any of these are impassable obstacles. 
If we know of a kind act which we might, but do not 
intend to perform; if we be aware that our moral 
health requires the abandonment of some pleasure 
which we do not intend to abandon — here is cause 
enough for the loss of all spiritual power. (F. B. 
Cobbe.) 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 73 

Thank God for the Trials of Life. 

Notwithstanding all I have suffered— all the pain 
and weariness and anxiety and sorrow that neces- 
sarily enter into life, and the inward errings that are 
worse than all — I would end my record with a de- 
vout thanksgiving to the great Author of my being. 
I am more and more unwilling to make my gratitude 
to him for mercies only. Instead of this, I would it to 
be gratitude for all — for all that belongs to my life: for 
joy and sorrow, for health and sickness, for success and 
disappointment, for life and death — because I believe 
that God is good to us in all these things, if we will 
only be his faithful and obedient children. (Orville 
Dewey. ) 

Love God for the Trials of Life. 

The evils which God allows and overrules seem 
very good, because they see in them his loving hand 
put forth to heal them of what shuts out God from 
the soul. They love God intensely in that he is so 
good to them in each and every, the least good, be- 
cause it is more than they deserve. How much more 
is the greatest? They love God for every and each, 
the very greatest of what seem evils, knowing them 
to be from his love, real goods. For he by whom all 
the hairs of our head are numbered, and who knoweth 
whereof we are made, directs everything that befalls 
us in this life, in perfect wisdom and love, to the well- 
being of our souls. (E. B. Pusey. ) 

Be Still and Know That I Am God. 

Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit, from 
thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the prin- 



74 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

ciple of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, from 
whom all life comes, whereby thou mayest receive 
his strength and power to allay all blustering storms 
and tempests. That is it which works up into pa- 
tience, into stillness, into quietness, up to God. 
Therefore be still awhile from thy own thoughts, 
searching, seeking desires and imaginations, and be 
stayed in the principle of God in thee, that it may 
raise thy mind up to God and stay it upon him ; and 
thou wilt find strength from God, and find him to be 
a God at hand, a present help in time of trouble and 
need. (George Fox. ) 

Perseverance. 
What would it be to love absolutely a being abso- 
lutely lovely, to be able to give our whole existence, 
every thought, every act, every desire, to him; to 
know that he accepts it all, and loves us in return as 
God alone can love? This love, or happiness, grows 
forever. The larger our natures become, the wider 
our scope of thought, the stronger our will, the more 
fervent our affections, the deeper must be the rapture 
of our joy, the stronger our will. Soon it will be no 
transitory glimpse, no rapture of a day, to be fol- 
lowed by clouds and coldness. Let us labor and pray 
and wait, and the intervals of human frailty shall 
grow shorter and less dark, the days of our delight 
in God longer and brighter, till at last life shall be 
naught but his love. Our eyes shall never grow dim, 
his smile shall never turn away. (F. P. Cobbe. ) 

What It Is to Love God. 
To love God is to love his character. For instance, 
God is purity. To be pure in thought and look, to 



Experimental and Practical Christianity, 75 

turn away from immoral looks and conversation, to 
abhor the moments in which we have not been pure, 
is to love God. God is love, and to love men till pri- 
vate attachment has expanded into a philanthropy 
which embraces all, even the wicked and our enemies, 
with compassion — that is to love God. God is truth. 
To be true, to have every form of falsehood removed, 
to live a brave and true life — that is to love God. 
God is infinite, and to love the boundless reaching 
out from grace to grace, adding charity to faith, and 
rising upward ever to see the ideal still above us, 
and to die with it unattained, aiming insatiably to be 
perfect, even as the Father is perfect — that is to love 
God. (F. W.Robertson.) 

Give God Time. 
I believe if we could only see beforehand what it 
is that our Heavenly Father means us to be, the soul 
beauty, perfection and glory, the glorious, lovely, 
spiritual body that this soul is to dwell in through 
all eternity — if we could have a glimpse of this, we 
would not grudge all the trouble and pains God is 
taking with us now to bring us up to that ideal, 
which is his thought of us. We know that it is 
God's way to work slowly; so we must not be sur- 
prised if he takes a great many years of discipline to 
turn a mortal being into an immortal, glorious angel. 
(Annie Keary. ) 

The Divine Moment. 
One great sign of the practical recognition of the 
divine moment, and of our finding God's habitation 
in it, is constant calmness and peace of mind. Events 



76 A Little Casket of Precious Jeioels. 

and things come with the moment, but God comes 
with them too; so that if he comes in the sunshine, 
we find rest and joy; and if he comes in the storm, 
we know that he is King of the storms, and our 
hearts are not troubled. God himself, though pos- 
sessing a heart with the tenderest feelings, is, never- 
theless, an everlasting tranquillity; and when we en- 
ter into his holy tabernacle, our souls necessarily en- 
ter into the tabernacle of rest. (T. C. Upham.) 

Kindness to All Persons. 
A heart unloving among kindred has no love to- 
ward God's saints and angels. If we have a cold 
heart toward a friend, why should we wonder if we 
have no favor toward God? If we are cold in our 
private prayers, we would be earthly and dull in the 
most devout religious exercises. If we cannot bear 
the vexations of a companion, how could we bear the 
contradiction of sinners? If a little pain overcomes 
us, how could we endure a cross? If we have no ten- 
der, cheerful, affectionate love for those with whom 
our daily hours are spent, how should we feel the 
pulse and ardor of love toward the unknown, the 
ungrateful, and repulsive? (H. C. Manning.) 

Watch Our Temper. 
All usefulness and all comfort may be prevented 
by an unkind, sour, crabbed temper of mind. A mind 
that can bear with no difference of opinion or tem- 
perament; a spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied dis- 
position; a constant irritability; inequalities in the 
look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and 
dissatisfied — your husband or your wife cannot tell 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 77 

why — will more than neutralize the good that you 
can do and render life anything but a blessing. (Al- 
bert Barnes. ) 

Make God All in All. 

When it is the one ruling, never-ceasing desire of 
our hearts that God may be the beginning and end, the 
reason and motive, the rule and measure of our doing 
or not doing, from morning till night — then every- 
where, whether speaking or silent, whether inwardly 
or outwardly employed, we are equally offered up to 
the eternal Spirit. We have our life in him and 
from him, and are united to him by that spirit of 
prayer which is the comfort, the support, the strength 
and security of the soul, traveling by the help of God 
through the vanities of time into the riches of eterni- 
ty. Let us have no thought or care but how to be 
wholly his devoted instruments everywhere and in 
everything, his adoring, joyful, and thankful serv- 
ants. (William Law.) 

Keep Your Trouble to Yourself. 
Our veiled and terrible guest, trouble, brings us, if 
we will accept it, the boon of fortitude, patience, 
self-control, wisdom, sympathy, and faith. If we 
reject that boon, then we find in our hands the oth- 
er gift — cowardice, weakness, isolation, despair. If 
your trouble seems to have in it no other possibility 
of good, at least set yourself to bear it like a man. 
Try to carry it so no one shall see it. Let none of 
its weight come on other shoulders. Though your 
heart be sad within, let cheer go out from you to oth- 
ers. Meet them with a kindly presence, with pleas- 
ant words and healthful acts. (G. S. Merriam.) 



78 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Blessing of Fellowship with God. 

It is impossible for us to make the duties of our lot 
minister to our sanctification without a habit of de- 
vout fellowship with God. This is the spring of all 
our life and strength. It is prayer, meditation, and 
converse with God that refreshes, restores, and 
renews the temper of our mind at all times, under 
all trials, after all conflicts with the world. By this 
contact with the unseen world we receive continual 
accesses of strength. Hence as our day so shall our 
strength be. Without this healing and refreshing 
of spirit, duties become to be burdens, the events of 
life chafe our temper, employments lower the tem- 
per of our minds, and we become fretful, irritable, 
and impatient. (H. C. Manning.) 

Fellowship with God Requires Us to Live Eight 
toward All Persons. 

It is impossible to live in fellowship with God 
without holiness in all the duties of life. These 
things act and react on each other. Without a faith- 
ful and diligent obedience to the calls and claims of 
others, our religious profession is simply dead. To 
disobey conscience when it points to our duties irri- 
tates the temper and quenches the first beginnings of 
devotion. We cannot go from strife, breaches, and 
angry words to God. Selfishness, an imperious will, 
want of sympathy with the sufferings and sorrows of 
others, neglect of charitable duties, suspicions, hard 
censures of those with whom our lot is cast will 
miserably darken our hearts and hide the face of 
God from us, 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 79 

Yield to God's Will. 

God understands his own plan, and he knows what 
you need a great deal better than you do. The very 
thing that you deprecate as fatal limitations and ob- 
structions are probably what you most need. What 
you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements are 
probably God's opportunities. Bring down your 
soul, or rather bring it up, to receive God's will and 
to do his work, in your lot, in your sphere, under 
your cloud of obscurity, against your temptations, 
and then you will find that your condition is never 
opposed to your good, but really consistent with it. 
(H. Bushnell.) 

Be Calm in the Storm and Trust in God. 

Beware of letting your care degenerate into anx- 
iety and unrest; tossed as you are amid the winds 
and the waves of sundry troubles, keep your eyes 
fixed on the Lord, and say, "O my Lord, I look up 
to thee; be thou my guide, my pilot;" and then be 
comforted. When the shore is gained, who will heed 
the toil or the storm. We shall steer safely through 
every storm, so long as our heart is right, our cour- 
age steadfast, and our trust fixed in God. If at times 
we are somewhat stunned by the tempest, never fear. 
Let us take breath and go on again. (Francis De 
Sales. ) 

Cultivate a Spirit of Yielding. 

But if a man ought and is willing to lie still under 
God's hand, he must and ought also to lie still under 
all things, whether they come from God himself or 
any other source. He who would be obedient, re- 



80 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

signed, and submissive to God must be and ought to 
be also resigned, submissive, and obedient to all things 
in a spirit of yielding, and not of resistance; and take 
them in silence, resting on the hidden foundations of 
his soul, and having a secret inward patience that en- 
ableth him to take all chances or crosses willingly; 
and, whatever befalleth, neither to call for or desire 
any redress or deliverance or resistance or revenge, 
but always in a loving, sincere humility to cry: " Fa- 
ther, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
(Theologia Germanica.) 

Our Friends in Heaven in Sympathy with Us. 

We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses, 
whose hearts throb in sympathy with every effort 
and struggle, and who thrill with joy at every suc- 
cess. How should this thought check and rebuke 
every worldly feeling and unworthy purpose, and 
enshrine us in the midst of a forgetful and unspir 
itual world with an atmosphere of heavenly peace! 
They have overcome, have risen, are crowned, glo- 
rified; but still they remain to us our assistants and 
comforters, and in every hour of darkness their 
voice speaks to us: "So we grieved, so we struggled, 
so we fainted, so we doubted ; but we have overcome, 
we have obtained, we have seen, we have found, and 
in our victory behold the certainty of thy own." (H. 
B. Stowe. ) 

God's Way Is Best. 

Accept his will entirely, and never suppose that 
you could serve him better in any other way. You 
could never serve him well save in the way he choos- 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 81 

es. Supposing you were never to be set free from 
such trials, what would you do? You would say 
to God: "I am thine; if my trials are acceptable to 
thee, give me more and more." I have full confi- 
dence that this is just what you would say, and then 
you would not think more of it; at any rate you would 
not be anxious. Well, do the same now. Make 
friends with your trials, as though you were always 
to live together; and you will see that when you 
cease to take thought for your own deliverance God 
will take thought for you, and when you cease to 
help yourself, he will help you. (Francis De 
Sales. ) 

Patience. 

Patience endues her scholars with content of mind 
and evenness of temper, preventing all repining, 
grumbling, and impatient desires and inordinate af- 
fections. Disappointments here are no crosses, and all 
anxious thoughts are disarmed of their sting. In her 
habitation dwell quietness, submission, and long-suf- 
fering. All fierce, turbulent inclinations are hereby 
allayed. The eyes of the patient fixedly wait the in- 
ward power of God's providence, and they are there- 
by mightily enabled toward their salvation and pres- 
ervation. (Thomas Taylor.) 

Impatience. 

The vexation, restlessness, and impatience which 
small trials cause arise wholly from our ignorance 
and want of self-control. We may be thwarted and 
troubled, it is true; but these things put us in a 
condition for exercising patience and meek subniis- 
6 



82 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

sion and self-abnegation, wherein alone the fullness 
of God is to be found. (Dr. Bently. ) 

Every day bear all the inconveniences of life for 
the love of God — cold, hunger, restless nights, ill 
health, unwelcome news, ingratitude of friends, mal- 
ice of enemies, our own feelings, the struggle in 
overcoming self — bearing all these with patience and 
resignation to the will of God. Do all this as unto 
God, with the greatest privacy. (Bishop Wilson.) 

Earth and Heaven Not Far Apart. 
We are apt to feel as if nothing we could do on 
earth bears a relation to what the good are doing in 
heaven, but it is not so. H[eaven and earth are not 
far apart. Every disinterested act, every sacrifice 
made, every exertion for the good of one of the least 
of Christ's brethren, every new insight into God's 
works, every new influence given to the love of truth 
and goodness, associates us with the departed, brings 
us nearer to them, and is as truly heavenly as if we 
were acting not on earth but in heaven. The spir- 
itual tie between us and the departed is not felt as 
it should be. Our union with them daily grows 
stronger, if we daily make progress in what they 
are progressing in. (W. M. Channing. ) 

What Christ Is Doing for Us in Heaven. 
The great truth we are to learn is this: The knowl- 
edge of Jesus as having entered heaven for us, and 
taken us into union with himself into the heavenly 
life, is what will deliver the Christian from all that 
is low and feeble, and lift him to a life of joy and 
strength. To gaze upon the heavenly Christ in the 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 83 

Father's presence, to whom all things are subject, will 
transform us into heavenly Christians, dwelling all 
the day in God's presence, and overcoming every en- 
emy. (A. Murray.) 

The To-Day of the Holy Ghost. 

The Holy Ghost saith to-day. What does that 
mean ? God is the Eternal One. With him there is 
no yesterday or to-morrow. What we call past and 
future are with him an ever-present now. His life 
is an ever-blessed, never-ending to-day. Christ has 
become the Author of eternal salvation. Its chief 
mark is an ever-present now, that there is not a mo- 
ment in which Christ is not able to maintain us in 
this eternal salvation in the power of an endless life. 

In Christ all the blessedness of the great eternity 
is gathered up in an ever-present now. The one need 
of the believer is to know it and to respond to it to- 
day—this present moment, called the divine moment. 

The Work of Cheist. 
Our High Priest has charge of our spiritual life, 
which he takes in that never-ceasing succor which he 
is able to give in every temptation. This is the 
greatest and most blessed part of his work in bring- 
ing us to God: that as the leader in the path of suf- 
fering and perfection he inspires us with his own dis- 
positions, and by the mighty operation of his spirit 
within us gives us his help in every time of need. 
But w r e must know him and trust him fully. 

The Heart. 
The heart is the organ God created in man for hold- 
ing fellowship with himself. Faith is its first natural 



84: A Little Gasket of Precious Jewels. 

function. By faith and love it lives in God. It is 
the ear that hears the voice of God, the eye that can 
ever see God and the unseen world, the capacity for 
knowing and receiving all that God can communicate. 
It begins as trust in the word spoken. It grows into 
fellowship with the person who speaks. Its fruit is 
the reception of all that God has to bestow. 

As our heart is so is our faith. Our enjoyment of 
Christ, our spiritual strength and fruitfulness, our 
nearness to God, and our experience of his working 
in us all depend not upon occasional acts of faith 
but upon the state of the heart. "Keep thy heart 
with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." 

Believers Are Partakers of Christ. 

We must see that when we are made partakers of 
Christ that includes all, and that as at first so all 
the way to the end we can receive out of Christ only 
by faith, and according to our faith. Our persever- 
ance will be the seal of our being pertakers of Christ. 
When we truly become partakers of Christ, we will 
be known even now, and to all eternity, as one with 
Christ on the throne of glory. Let us know our- 
selves as God knows us — partakers of Christ. 

Have faith in Jesus on the throne as our Head and 
life that he has brought us in and will make it true 
in our experience; trust Jesus, being made partaker 
of his nature and life, to work all in us that the Fa- 
ther seeks, and we shall know how blessed it is to 
enter the rest of God. 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 85 

Practice the Presence of God. 
True living faith is to be obtained and increased 
by practicing the presence of God in deep humility 
and stillness of heart. Thirst for God, the living 
God. "My soul, be thou silent unto God; for my ex- 
pectation is from him." He sees and hears and loves 
us. He speaks and gives and works and reveals him- 
self to us. His presence wakens and strengthens and 
satisfies our faith. He is the living God out of 
whom life comes into them that believe. 

Day by Day. 
This word of the Holy Spirit is the complement of 
the other word to-day. The to-day of the Holy 
Spirit must day by day be repeated. What has 
once been done will not avail. Day by day our fel- 
lowship with Jesus, our consecration to him, our 
service for him must be renewed, if we would make 
progress in the divine life. 

The Rest of God. 
When the soul learns to trust God for victory over 
sin, and yields itself entirely as to its circumstances 
and duties of life, to live just where and how God 
wills, then it enters the rest. It lives in the promises, 
in the will, and in the power of God. This is the rest 
into which the soul enters, not through death but 
through faith, or rather not through the death of the 
body, but the death to self in the death of Christ 
through faith. The one thing God asks in our inter- 
course with him and his word is the habit of faith 
that ever keeps the heart open toward God, and longs 
to enter in and abide in his rest. 



86 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Jesus Is Oues. 

Claim Jesus as ours, not only on his cross, in his 
death and resurrection; but above all, in his heaven- 
liness, in his possession of the rest of heaven. Claim 
him, and leave him to do his blessed work. You need 
not understand all. Your feelings may not be what 
you would wish. Trust him who has done all for 
you in earth and heaven to do all in your heart also. 
He is your great High Priest. You own him; he is 
yours, your very own, wholly yours. You may use 
him with ail he is and has. You can trust him for 
all you need. Know and claim him as your great 
High Priest to bring you to God. The knowledge 
of the greatness and glory of Jesus is the secret of a 
strong and holy life. 

The Word of God. 

Some receive the word of God with the understand- 
ing. As long as it remains in the head it cannot be 
quickened. The word is meant for the heart, the 
will, and the affections. The word must be submitted 
to, must be lived, must be acted out. When this is 
done, it will manifest its quickening, living power. 
It is not we who have to make the word alive. When, 
in faith in the life and power there is in the word, 
the heart yields itself in humble submission and 
honest desire to its action, it will prove itself to be 
life and power. 

Solid Food for the Perfect. 

To know Christ as Melchizedek in his heavenly 
priesthood working in us in the power of an endless 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 87 

life; as a Saviour, able to save completely; as the 
minister of the sanctuary, who has opened the holiest 
of all and brings us in to dwell there; as the Media- 
tor of the new covenant, who does actually fulfill its 
promise and writes God's law in living power in our 
hearts — this is the solid food for the perfect. 

Long-suffering is the perseverance of faith. Faith 
grasps at once all of God's promises, but is in danger 
of relaxing its hold. Long-suffering comes to tell 
how faith needs to be renewed daily, and strengthens 
the soul, even when the promise tarries, still to hold 
fast, firm to the end. 

The Heavenly Jesus. 

Jesus is in heaven for us, to secure us a life on 
earth in the power and joy of heaven; to maintain 
the kingdom of heaven within us, by that spirit 
through whom God's will is done on earth as it is in 
heaven. All that Jesus is and has is heavenly. All 
that he is or does is heavenly. As High Priest at 
God's right hand, he blesses with all heavenly bless- 
ings. Let us prepare ourselves, as the glory of his 
person and ministry in the heavenly places is now to 
be opened up to us, to look upon it and appropriate 
it all as our personal possession. Believe that his 
high-priesthood not only consists in his having se- 
cured certain heavenly blessings for us, but in his 
fitting and enabling us to enter into the full personal 
experience and enjoyment of them. 

Faith and Perseverance. 

Through faith and long-suffering we inherit the 
promises. Salvation consists in what Christ is to us 



88 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

and does in us. There must each day be personal in- 
tercourse with him, distinct personal surrender to 
his teaching and working, if he is indeed to be our life. 
Let us beware, above everything, of unconsciously 
resting or trusting in what we have or enjoy of grace. 
It is alone by faith and long-suffering, by the never- 
ceasing daily renewal of our consecration and faith, 
that the heavenly life can be maintained in its fresh- 
ness and power. 

Jesus Gives Us Eternal Life. 

The way into the holiest has been opened by Jesus. 
We may boldly enter in and appear before God. 
Seated on the throne, our High Priest has the power 
by his Spirit to make the drawing nigh to God our 
continual, abiding experience. He does this in the 
power of the endless life. Life never works from 
without, always from within. Our High Priest, by 
his life power, enters our life and renews it and lifts 
it up. His heavenly life becomes our actual life, 
and the presence of God surrounds us and shines on 
us as the sunlight shines on our bodies. He is able 
so to shed abroad the love of God in our hearts that 
his presence is our joy all the day. 

The Heart Again. 

The heart is my life, is myself. The nearness to 
God and fellowship with him 1 cannot partake of ex- 
cept through my heart. My only blessedness is in 
the state of my heart. Therefore Jesus as High 
Priest cannot do his priestly work of bringing us 
nigh to God except as he dwells in our hearts by the 
power of the Holy Spirit. All our thought and faith 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 89 

and adoration of him in heaven brings us back to 
the riches of the glory of the mystery — Christ in us. 
He is priest after the power of an endless life, a 
priest whose presence and power are known and en- 
joyed in the life of our heart. 

In Christ. 

In Christ every believer has access to the holiest 
of all. Christ has redeemed us, not to bring us to 
himself but to bring us to God. Christ is the door, 
in which we are not to remain standing, but through 
which we enter to God himself, to his heart and his 
love. In Christ we have an immediate, living fel- 
lowship with the living God. 

Let us pray the Father to give us enlightened eyes 
of the heart to know what is the hope of his high 
calling to a life in his love and will; and what the 
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 
what the direct and full access to his presence and 
fellowship, and what the exceeding greatness of his 
power in us who believe, according to the working 
of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ 
when he raised him from the dead to set him on his 
own right hand. 

Value of Christ's Blood. 

In it are concentrated the mysteries of the incar- 
nation, in which our God took flesh and blood; of 
the obedience unto death, in which the blood was 
shed; of the love that passeth knowledge, that pur- 
chased us with his own blood; of the victory over 
every enemy, and the everlasting redemption ; of the 
resurrection and the entrance into heaven: of the 



90 A Little Gasket of Precious Jewels. 

atonement and the reconciliation, and the justification 
that came through it. 

Our Great High Priest. 
Our great High Priest over the House of God is 
the glorified Jesus, who in the Holy Spirit is pres- 
ent with us, and makes all that is done in heaven 
above for us to be done within us too by the Holy 
Spirit. What we need is just this: that the Holy 
Spirit himself, that Jesus in the Holy Spirit, be 
waited on, and accepted and trusted to do the work 
in power. Do not forget this truth; that when our 
great High Priest, once for all, entered the holiest 
and sat down on the throne, it was the Holy Spirit 
sent down in power into the hearts of his disciples, 
through whom the heavenly High Priest became an 
indwelling Saviour, bringing down with him into 
their hearts the presence and the love of God. 

The Blood of Christ. 
The blood of Christ has put away the thought of 
sin from God. "He remembers them no more for- 
ever." The blood puts away the thought of sin in us 
too, taking away the evil conscience that condemns 
us. The better things which the blood speaks in 
heaven, it speaks in my heart also. It lifts me into 
the heavenly sphere, that new state of life and inter- 
course with God in which an end has been made 
of sin, and the soul is taken into the full and perfect 
enjoyment of the love of God. 

The Power of the Spirit. 
The believer receives the assurance that the power 
of the Holy Ghost, coming from out of the holiest, 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 91 

can enable him to walk exactly in the same path in 
which Christ walked on his way to God, and make 
that way to him a new and living way with nothing 
of decay or weariness in his progress. This is the 
fullness of faith we are called to. But above all look 
to Jesus in all the glory in which he has been re- 
vealed in the Scriptures, as God and man, as Leader 
and forerunner, as Melchizedek, as the Minister of 
the sanctuary; as Mediator of the New Testament — 
in one word, as our great High Priest over the house 
of God. And looking to him, claim that he shall do 
for us this one thing: to bring us nigh, and even on 
earth give us to dwell forever in the presence of God. 

Pentecostal Gift. 

Claim the spirit of the Exalted One as his pente- 
costal gift. Remember these are all divine spiritual 
mysteries of grace to be revealed in us. Apart from 
feeling, without feeling, in fullness of faith, in bare, 
naked faith that honors God, enter in. Reckon your- 
self indeed to be alive to God in Christ Jesus, 
taken into his presence, his love, his very heart. 

Hope. 

Look up with a true heart in which the Holy 
Spirit dwells and works. Look up with a heart 
sprinkled by the High Priest with the blood, and 
hope — yes, hope in God — to do this divine work in thy 
soul. Let him be to thee more than ever the God of 
hope. Claim the fulfillment of the promise of his 
word: "The God of hope fill you with all joy and 
peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in 
the power of the Holy Ghost." Fullness of faith and 



92 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

fullness of hope are the two dispositions that mark 
the true heart. It is because we are to have nothing 
in ourselves, and God is to be all and to do all. Our 
whole attitude is to be looking up to him, expecting 
and receiving all from him. Our life of hope de- 
pends entirely upon the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. 

Prayer and Faith. 

Always and in everything live the life of faith. 
It is only when faith gives itself up entirely to Christ 
for him to do all in us, and when faith so dominates 
our life that every moment and every engagement 
shall be under its influence, that we can hope to suc- 
ceed. If I am to be sure of salvation, if I am to be 
strong against every temptation, if I am to live daily 
as one in whom God takes pleasure, I must be a man 
of prayer and faith. 

Faith. 

To know God, to see God in everything and every- 
where, in our daily life to be conscious of his pres- 
sence so that we always walk with him — this is the 
true nobility of man, this is the life that faith lives, 
this is the blessedness Jesus has now fully revealed 
in the rending of the veil. Faith walks with God. 

Faith honors God by seeking and acknowledging 
his presence, by expecting everything from him 
alone. Faith gives God his place and his glory. 
Faith wills what God wills. Faith lets God have his 
own way, and makes him all in all. No wonder that 
faith is infinitely pleasing to God. If Christians only 
believed this, and only made it their one duty to 
draw nigh and enter in and walk before him in the 
fullness of faith! 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 93 

Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. 
The Holy Spirit brought down out of the holiest 
of all within the veil, as an actual reality, the king- 
dom of heaven in the hearts of men, so that the 
presence of God, and the Father's delight in his son, 
and the Father's love now shed abroad in their hearts, 
became their everyday experience and consciousness. 
And even so now to them who seek and receive and 
yield to the Holy Spirit in his full indwelling and 
witness, faith receives and gives the witness that 
they are well-pleasing to God. 

Entering into the Holiest of All. 

What does the entering into the holiest of all 
mean? Separation from the world; a being set apart 
unto God; the denial of self and its life; the im- 
itation of Abraham in his going out; the imitation 
of Christ in his self-sacrifice. This is the only way 
to the land of promise, where the faith life flourishes. 
To live wholly for God; to hope alone in God; al- 
ways to walk with God; in all things to hearken to 
God — this is the law and living way into the inner 
sanctuary, into which Jesus our High Priest leads us 
and keeps us. 

Jesus was himself, in his obedience and suffering, 
made perfect in his human nature; in his will and life 
and character, that he might have a true, new, per- 
fect human life to communicate to us. 

Suffering Aright to God's Glory. 
It is one of the highest and noblest exercises of 
faith to suffer aright, and the blessing that comes 
through suffering is one of the richest rewards that 



94 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

faith can win. It is in the little common trials of daily 
life that we can follow in the footsteps of the great 
Leader of salvation. By faith alone are we able to 
bear suffering, great or small, aright to God's glory. 
Faith transfigures suffering, makes it transparent in 
the love of God, the presence of Christ, the beauty 
of holiness, and the blessing of Heaven. 

Supremacy of Faith. 

Let by faith be the motto of our life. In every 
need and perplexity, with every desire and prayer, 
with every work and trial, with every thought of 
ourselves and of God, let this be the one thing we 
seek ever to breathe — a living faith in a living God. 
Again, as absolute, as universal, as undisputed as is 
the supremacy of God is to be the supremacy of 
faith in our heart and life. We can have only as 
much of God in our heart as we have of faith. And 
because God is all and must be all to us, faith in us 
must be all too. 

Every trial, small or great,I will look upon at once 
as a messenger of God's love. If you thus meet it, 
whether it comes through man or yourself, or directly 
from above, as God's appointment, you are in the 
right attitude for bearing it and being blessed by it. 

Training School of Faith. 

It is in trial that all the heart of the child is drawn 
out toward the Father in dependence, humility, and 
trust. It is in trial that God the Father can reveal 
in the open heart of his child all the tenderness and 
all the saving power of his love. Without trial there 
could be no training school of faith, no growth of 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 95 

spiritual character, no strength of will given up to 
God and clinging to him. Let us bless God for 
every trial, small or great. It gives us a grand op- 
portunity for putting the crown upon the head of 
God, and of being made fit for him to crown us. 

Let us remember well the double lesson — no faith 
without difficulties for it to conquer; no difficulties 
but faith can surely conquer. In our consecration 
let us lose ourselves in the cause of God and humanity. 

How Faith Sees Our Suffering. 

Faith sees our suffering in the light of God and 
eternity, its short pain, its everlasting gain; its 
impotence to hurt the soul, its power to purify and to 
bless it; it sees him who allows it, with us in the fire, 
as a refiner watching our purging and perfecting, as 
a helper of our strength and comfort. It sees that 
the forming of a character like that of the Son of 
God, maintaining at every cost the Father's will and 
honor, is more than all the world can give. It sees 
that to be made partaker of his holiness, to have the 
humility, patience, gentleness of the Lamb of God 
inwrought into us, and like him to be made perfect 
in suffering, is the spirit of heaven, and it counts 
nothing too great to gain this treasure. 

By faith alone, but by faith most surely, we can in 
the midst of the deepest suffering be more than 
conquerors. 

Make Suffering Your Greatest Gain. 

Beware above everything in your Christian life of 
casting away your confidence, of becoming impatient, 
of losing courage. Learn to-day the secret of never 



96 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

sustaining loss in the soul by the sufferings of life. 
Yea, rather of making them your greatest gain. 
Link them to God and to Jesus. It is God who 
sends them. He sent them to Jesus and perfected 
him through them. He sends them to you in the 
same love, and will make them your highest gain. 
Receive every inward and outward trouble, every 
disappointment, pain, uneasiness, temptation, dark- 
ness, and desolation with both hands as a true oppor- 
tunity and blessed occasion of dying to self and en- 
tering into a fuller fellowship with thy self-denying 
and suffering Saviour. 

See God in Our Trials. 

Every trial comes from God as a call to come away 
from the world to him, to trust him, to believe in his 
love. In every trial he will give strength and bless- 
ing. Let but this truth be accepted: in every trial, 
small or great, first of all, and at once, recognize 
God's hand in it. Say: "My Father has allowed this 
to come. I welcome it from him. My first care is to 
glorify him in it. He will make it a blessing." We 
may be sure of this; let us by faith rejoice in it. The 
salvation God has provided for us, the blessed life in 
the new and living way into the holiest, through 
Jesus Christ, has such power that it can enable us in 
every trial to be more than conquerors through him 
that loved us and gave himself for us. 

Spiritual Truths. 

There is an introspection in which the soul looks 
inwardly to its own thoughts and feelings and pur- 
poses, to ascertain its religious state. This is not 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 97 

healthy, and not of faith; it turns the eye from 
Christ to self. But there is another introspection, 
which is one of the highest exercises of faith. It is 
when, closing the eye to all it can see of itself, the 
soul seeks to realize in faith that there is in its in- 
most parts a new spirit within which the Spirit of 
Christ now dwells. In this faith it unreservedly 
gives itself up to be renewed by the Spirit, yields 
every faculty of the soul to be sanctified and guided 
by this Spirit within. Without such a consciousness 
of a temple within, and its occupant daily renewed 
in holy silence, there could not be the clear, believing 
prayer to the Father to work mightily by his Spirit 
in us. 

The Unchanging Jesus. 

To-day claim and trust this unchanging Jesus as 
your life. His unchangeableness enters into the faith 
that feeds upon it, and communicates itself to it — yea, 
imparts itself to the soul that clings to him as such. 
Look not at yourself, your feelings, or your attain- 
ments, but at him who changeth not. In the power 
of the Holy Ghost, strengthening us with might in 
the inner man, he, this unchanging Christ, dwells 
in the heart by faith. Let the faith that worships 
him on the throne the same forever rejoice in him 
as the indwelling Saviour, who abideth continually 
and changeth not. According to your faith be it 
unto you, even as the Holy Ghost saith to-day. 

The Spiritual Life of the Christian. 
The inner spiritual life of a Christian is not subject 
to the changes that come upon his outer life. The 
body suffers; but if one is living in fellowship with 

7 



98 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

Christ, his spiritual life is untouched by physical suf- 
ferings. The normal Christian life is one of con- 
stant, unchecked, uninterrupted progress. 

Nothing must hinder the spiritual life of a Chris- 
tian. The teaching of the Scriptures — that is, what- 
ever the experience of the outer life, the growth and 
enrichment of the inner life — should never be inter- 
rupted or hindered. This is the divine purpose for 
us. Provision is made in the grace of God for this 
continuous work. We need never to be harmed by 
anything that breaks into our life. Indeed, there is 
nothing that touches us in any way that may not be 
made to minister good to us. Woundings of the body 
may become pearls in the soul. Losses of earthly 
things may become gains in the spiritual realm. Sick- 
ness of the body may result in new health in the in- 
ner man. It is the privilege and the duty of the 
child of God to move forward and upward day by 
day, whatever the day's experience may be. 

This is the meaning of the promises of peace which 
are found so frequently in the Bible. We have no 
assurance of a life without strife, trial, trouble, 
earthly pain and loss; but we are assured that we 
may have unbroken peace within, while the outer 
life is thus beset. "In the world ye shall have trib- 
ulation; in me ye shall have peace." 

It is the privilege and duty of every Christian so 
to meet the experience of sickness and suffering as 
ever to grow in it into Christlier character. The se- 
cret is a living faith in Jesus. Restlessness or dis- 
trust will mar the divine work that Christ would do 
in the heart; but quiet submission to the will of God, 
and peaceful waiting for him, will insure continual 



Experimental and Practical Christianity. 99 

renewal of the inner life, even while the outer life is 
being consumed. The sick room may be made a 
holy of holies — a place of blessedness. 

In the experiences of old age it is not easy to keep 
the heart joyful all the time, yet that is the problem 
of true Christian living. While the outward man 
decays, the inward man should be renewed day by 
day. This is possible, too, as many Christian old 
people have proved by abiding fully in Christ ail the 
time. Faith gives a new meaning to life. Life is 
seen no more in its relation to this earth and what is 
gone, but in its relation to immortality and what is 
to come. "This one thing I do, forgetting those 
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, I press toward the 
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus." 

This, then, I believe to be the great purpose of the 
quiet hour — to beget in our lives that stillness which 
will enable us to hear God's lightest whisper, and 
thus to know him whom to know is eternal life ; 
that outlook which will redeem our lives from all 
meanness and pettiness, and give us a knowledge of 
the hope of God's calling, and the infiniteness of our 
destiny in him; that God-consciousness which will 
make our blessed Master real to us, that to us in the 
fullest sense every day, and all the day, to live will 
be Christ. 

At this moment in the divine presence I realize 
that I am a child of God, redeemed by the blood of 
Christ, quickened and indwelt by the Holy Ghost. 
At this moment I believe in Jesus Christ, I rest on 
him, I love him, I desire to please him. And at this 



100 A Little Casket of Precious Jewels. 

moment God loves me. The Lord is my keeper. The 
Holy Ghost is at work making me holy. At this mo- 
ment God's grace is sufficient for me. All things 
are working for my good. 

The Christian can afford to wait, for he has an 
eternity to draw on; he can afford to bear, for the 
sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be 
compared with the glory that is to be revealed in him 
in the future and eternal world. It makes him heav- 
enly-minded. He learns to measure his life, not by 
years but by millenniums. Well may he set his af- 
fections on things above. 



AUG 261903 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 






L- 



